


Our Weight In Gold

by ann2who



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, M/M, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Soulmates, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark Endgame, Tony Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-04 01:19:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2904038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ann2who/pseuds/ann2who
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was every cliché he’d ever heard about. Every sappy thing they wrote down in the magazines, every single thing he had always hated about the myth. It was as though he had experienced life without sight, and was suddenly bombarded by a storm of color. It was all-consuming, and rushing through his veins like molten lava, like his whole existence was suddenly filled with sunlight. A door opened, and a myriad of emotions stormed through his body: confusion, disbelief, loneliness, and so much fierce determination that it almost knocked Tony off his feet. And he understood then, understood that these emotions weren’t his. They were Rogers’.</p><p>This is a story about fate, self-doubt, choice and eventually—love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! It's finally done. This is my first take on the Soulmate Verse. It's all a bit heavy in the beginning, but I promise, it'll ease up. I'm a Happy Ending kind of person, so no worries there. I hope you all enjoy this!! The story will have 4 chapters, which I will post weekly.
> 
> As always, major thanks to [morphia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/morphia/pseuds/morphia), who beta'ed the whole thing in one go. Because she's awesome like that. Also, thanks to Zitronenbomber for test reading :) your suggestions helped a ton.

It only took one single click and everything fell into place.

The arc reactor blinked—once, twice—before it bathed the dark water in a bright turquoise light. Tony smiled down on the pipeline for a moment, satisfied with how smoothly things had developed this evening. He pushed himself upwards, firing up the boot thrusters. The new Iron Man suit cut seamlessly through the ocean, emerging right next to a little ferry, before making its way through the streets of Lower Manhattan.

“I’m just saying, you’ve never personally met anyone,” he said in the vague direction of Pepper’s face on the HUD. “You just know a guy, who has this friend, whose second cousin once mistook a light reflection for something else and that’s hardly evidence for—”

“Tony.”

“Stop saying my name like that,” he said shortly. He cut around a street corner and flew past West Village. “You can light her up.”

Over the HUD, Pepper smiled at him. The lopsided kind of smile that meant she wasn’t taking him seriously and was only generously indulging his crazy. The next second, Stark Tower lit up in the distance.

“How does it look?” Pepper asked.

“Like Christmas, but with more… me. Anyway—I mean it. Someone suddenly decides it’s all fact rather than fiction, and _bam_ , everyone is walking around, staring at complete strangers. Last week, the head of accounting—what’s her name—Doris?”

“Daphne.”

“Daphne—whom I’ve known since I was twenty-three, mind you—kept giving me glances for over five minutes straight. It was disturbing, Pepper.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t real. People write dissertations about it—scientific dissertations. Darwin alone wrote _three_ books about it. You’re just… stuck on your one-man-vendetta against predestination, there’s a difference.”

Tony huffed as he directed the suit on 8th Avenue. “It’s not a vendetta—no, don’t give me that look, it’s _not_. I just don’t see why people are getting so crazy over this. I mean, okay: To keep things from getting creepy, I’m even assuming soulmates are within a few years of your age, okay? Let’s say… fifteen. With that restriction, most of us would have a pool of around half a billion potential matches… Your soulmate could be a paddy farmer in Sri Lanka for all you know.”

Pepper laughed quietly, gazing at him with her beautiful non-golden eyes. “Statistics say it’s mostly someone that fits your own personal preferences. Culturally, physically, emotionally…”

“ _You_ fit my personal preferences.”

A pause. Pepper’s mouth quirked upwards. “Whether you like it or not—soulmates are a thing, now,” she said, opening a bottle of Champagne and pouring them two glasses. “The people won’t stop believing just because you tell them to.”

Tony sighed and swiftly cut around the next corner, balancing out before racing up the street that would finally lead him home.

The myth of soulmates had been around for centuries—millennia, even. There were cave paintings, Sumerian stone tablets, medieval tapestries; the whole gig. But only three months ago, they’d given the myth a scientific name— _PI, short for Physic Imprint_ —and named it a valid theory.

Soulbonds were something that was supposed to only happen once in lifetime, if at all, and it was that rarity that made them the subject of half the world’s romances and fairytales, as well as the universal obsession with golden eyes. Every movie, every book, every shitty rom-com—the golden flash of eyes was everywhere. It was the literal gold at the end of the rainbow, and now that a couple of scientists claimed to have found evidence for its validity, most people wet their pants at the mere thought of it.

Once a person’s eyes met another’s and they flashed golden, it was over.

The search.

The longing.

If you asked him—the whole thing was just a big load of starry-eyed crap. Finding your soulmate was something that only rich people and celebrities could afford. If you had the money, you could play SoulMateRoulette, go on Find-Your-Soulmate-Cruises, or hire a Soulmate Agency. There were new television shows like ‘Bond Me Up’, and ‘Who’s Your Mate?’, and a giant market of soulmate jewellery and clothes. Suddenly, everyone wanted to work as a cashier or a police officer in Time Square, because of the eye contact potential. People were flocking to cities and public gathering places to find love. For three months, it had been like one giant soulmate sale out there and Tony hated everything about it.

Given the pressure and stress, most people faked it. Faked having had a soul mate encounter. They’d marry, hide their relationship problems, and struggle to present a happy face to their friends and families. The people, the _real_ people—those who were happily married for decades—never even claimed to be soulmates. And after more than forty years, and a couple of amazing hook-ups with non-soulmates, whose eyes were perfectly brown, green, or blue, Tony was convinced it was all just some stupid-assed conspiracy; some nice fairy-tale to keep the John and Jane Does of this world hoping for better things to come.

Sure, as a child, Tony had loved the stories about soulmates, just like every other kid. The thought that there was this _one_ person who’d be there for you, no matter what—someone Heaven and Hell couldn’t drive away, someone you would love and who would love you in return—who wouldn’t sink their teeth into that? It was the Happily Ever After everyone dreamed of, after all.

Now, though, he was simply annoyed. And angry. He didn’t need eyes flashing golden for him to find the right person. He had Pepper. He was lucky. They had their downtimes like everyone else, and didn’t see each other nearly as often as they should, but they would push through. They had loved each other way before they’d even kissed—on a platonic level, maybe, but loved nevertheless—and he didn’t need some romantic myth to know they would work out.

“I’m just saying,” he continued, while he approached the last mile to Stark Tower, “even if someone’s eyes flash golden, that doesn’t mean I have to listen to a hormonal prank telling me what to do. That’s stupid. There needs to be a choice.”

From afar, he saw Pepper coming to a stop in front of a holograph of the tower, looking up at the numbers there. “It _is_ a choice, Tony. The PI doesn’t force you into anything. It just… makes you aware of one another. It’s an exclusive lifelong bond, and—”

“Did you just quote Wikipedia, ‘cause I know you’re better than—”

“ _And_ you’re supposed to feel the bond every day, every minute of the day. Can’t imagine anyone who’d have his mate near and just… ignore that.”

Tony set foot on the landing pat, and scowled at Pepper while the suit slowly disassembled around him. With large steps, he walked into their living room and pulled her in his arms. “I would,” he told her firmly.

The thought alone, that someone could just come along and make his whole life go haywire, left Tony with a sour taste in his mouth.

Pepper smiled at him and cupped his cheek with a hand. “I know,” she said, searching his gaze, as she leaned back. “If anyone is stubborn enough to do that, it’s you. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I know you hate the idea, and I didn’t want to argue. This is your big night.”

“ _Our_ big night,” he corrected. “And I don’t hate it, exactly. I just don’t see the appeal.”

“Oh Tony,” Pepper said in _that voice_ , before she turned around to sip on her glass of Champagne.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The second Phil Coulson had stepped into the penthouse, Tony had known—immediately—that shit was about to hit the fan, big time.

Still.

 _Aliens_. What the fuck.

After Pepper and Coulson had left the tower, Tony needed a couple of moments to let all of this sink in. He stared at the holographs of the team Fury had been putting together over the span of the last few months. He looked at Bruce Banner’s green alter ago, at a blonde guy with admittedly pretty amazing marksmanship skills, at Romanov’s now short curly red hair, and at Steve Rogers’ blue eyes. Rogers had been the one thing Tony hadn’t known about, the one piece in the puzzle that Fury had been able to keep hidden from him and it took a while to shake off the sheer disbelief.

They’d found Captain America.

They’d found _Captain America_.

Not some impostor—the real deal. The report made it sound so simple Tony couldn’t stifle a short, somewhat manic laugh. They’d simply thawed the guy out of the ice, and started heating the body until his heart started to beat again. Just like that.

While Tony flew over the Atlantic, JARVIS kept reading the reports to him, kept bombarding him with every key information about the Avengers, Loki, and the Tesseract and by the time he’d landed in Stuttgart, Tony was so pissed he was sure he would blast a beam at Fury, first chance he got.

He hadn’t dug into SHIELD’s files—out of sheer politeness, mind you—because Fury had made it very clear that he was their go-to-guy when it came to things they couldn’t control. For things they couldn’t understand. And yet, there was the Tesseract. The same Tesseract that had empowered every Hydra weapon in World War Two. The same Tesseract that was now somehow the object of interest for the God who sat at his feet.

“Mr. Stark,” Rogers said, and came to a halt next to him. He stared down at Loki, who slowly raised his hands in surrender, sporting an entirely too self-satisfied smile while doing so.

“Captain,” Tony answered with a nod in Rogers’ general direction.

After they hauled Loki into the Quinjet, things turned a little quieter. Well, aside for the heavy thunderstorm conjuring up in the sky. On the HUD, Tony skimmed through the last read-outs SHIELD had been able to make on the Tesseract. Rogers was leaning over the front seats, quietly talking to Romanov, before he moved around and eventually came to stand right next to him.

The uniform SHIELD had put the guy in was ridiculous. It looked like there was barely a thin layer of cloth protecting his freakishly muscled body. They made him wear tights, for God’s sake. Sure, his serum-enhanced physique and the stern gaze still gave him this grave look of authority, but Jesus—the uniform looked like a fan boy really had lost his shit while designing the monstrosity.

Tony kept stealing a few glances at the shield, though, ‘cause fuck it, huge Frisbee or not, that thing was fucking impressive as it was. It was _the_ shield. The shield his father had created, and for all he knew, the only other vibranium on this planet, aside the little triangle in his chest cavity.

“Could you…” Rogers vaguely gestured at his helmet. “Can you take this off?”

Tony smirked and leaned forward so the eye slits were level with Rogers’ eyes. “Why? The whole robot thing a bit too much for you? Well, let’s see, they’d just built ‘Elektro the Moto-Man’ in your time, right? Would it make you feel a bit more comfortable if I blew up a few balloons for you?”

Something ticked in Rogers’ jaw, but otherwise, he stayed still, clearly unimpressed. He stared right at Iron Man’s eyes like he’d seen tons of sophisticated state-of-the-art armored battle suits in his life. “I just prefer talking to someone I can actually see, but I’m getting less interested by the second.”

Tony snorted despite himself. “Eye contact is clearly overrated.”

Rogers sighed, and started to unclasp his mask. “Humor me?”

“I have a feeling that’s harder than it sounds,” Tony murmured, but eventually gave in and pressed both index fingers into the two little slots at the helmet’s side to trigger the manual opening mechanism.

An impossibly long beat passed, as the helmet came loose and Tony took it off.

Rogers’ face was considering, and clearly more than a little curious, as he followed the movements of the various metal plates. Then, their eyes met. Met directly for the first time and something slammed into Tony hard. His lungs gasped for air, and his body shut down completely.

Not possible. Not fucking possible.

But it was there. God, was it ever there.

It was every cliché he’d ever heard about. Every sappy thing they wrote down in the magazines, every single thing he had always hated about the myth. It was as though he had experienced life without sight, and was suddenly bombarded by a storm of color. It was all-consuming, and rushing through his veins like molten lava, like his whole existence was suddenly filled with sunlight. A door opened, and a myriad of emotions stormed through his body: confusion, disbelief, loneliness, and so much fierce determination that it almost knocked Tony off his feet. And he understood then, understood that these emotions weren’t his.

They were Rogers’.

The mask on the man’s face was still only halfway down, but he was looking at him in complete shock. With the beginnings of fear and horror that Tony could fully relate to. And with a thousand other things he couldn’t even begin to fathom, yet.

And his eyes… oh God, his _eyes_.

Tony felt like falling to his knees and weeping, as his world collapsed around him.

Because Steve Rogers’ eyes were shining gold.

 

 

* * *

 

 

No.

No. No. No. No. No. No.

No.

A long, controlled breath hissed through Tony’s lips. His soulmate. God, he’d never felt anything like this. Never. This was his mate. Instantly, his mind was screaming at him, demanding that he get over whatever doubts he had and embrace Rogers and never let go again.

No. No.

 _No_.

Rogers seemed to think some of the same, seeing how his eyes had gone wide and how he didn’t even breathe anymore. “What—” he started, staring at Tony like he’d just realized Santa Claus didn’t exist. “ _No_.”

Tony didn’t register how hard he was trembling until he felt a tentative hand on his arm. God, Rogers was close. Awfully close. He was also a man with eyes swimming in gold.

A man. His soulmate was a _man_.

“No,” Rogers repeated, still staring at Tony’s eyes in utter disbelief.

“You can say that again,” Tony breathed, a little relieved at Rogers’ reaction. At least the guy was freaking out, too.

Jesus, he wasn’t gay, or even bi, for that matter. Sure, there’d been a few stories strewn in the mags about him, but that was just people believing what they wanted to believe, and Tony was _straight_ , for Heaven’s sake. He had never kissed a guy, and he’d never _wanted_ to. He could objectively find a man handsome, sure, just like he appreciated a well-designed car or something, but he’d never felt anything more than that. He didn’t _want_ any of this. This had to be a mistake, a giant horrible mistake and—

His mind sprung to a thousand essays on soulmates and sexual orientation. God, it was a thing, wasn’t it? If Darwin had been right, soulbonds gave a fuck about gender. _Persons_ suddenly gave a fuck about gender. When they found their mate, they didn’t even care about it anymore. This would make him gay. He would turn gay because Steve Rogers’ eyes were shining gold.

God, Tony was barely aware he was even breathing anymore. The temperature in the room had both plummeted and soared in just seconds. The weight of what was happening seemed too heavy to grasp. There had to be some mistake.

Some seriously fucked up cosmic mistake.

As though sensing Tony’s thoughts, Rogers jerked his hand back like he’d been burned. “You can’t be my—”

“Don’t say it,” Tony hissed, glancing at Romanov, who cast them a curious glance. “I’m not. You’re not. We’re _not_.”

The guy looked honest-to-God brokenhearted. “But I—”

Whatever Rogers had wanted to say was interrupted as a thunderbolt hit the Quinjet. The rear hatch opened, and suddenly there was another tall blonde guy with a cape—a freaking red _cape_ —who then proceeded to lift Loki right off his seat.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The whole thing seemed unreal. Loki, the Tesseract, Coulson’s death, the Chitauri, a giant fucking portal into outer space—Tony felt like he was in a bubble of noise, and now that things started to calm down again, now that New York was saved, and they were heading back to SHIELD’s headquarters, the only word in his mind clear enough to pick out was _soulmate_ , _soulmate_ , _soulmate_.

Throughout the battle, Rogers seemed to have all but forgotten about their little discovery in the Quinjet. He was in full Captain-mode, giving out orders to everyone, including Tony, like nothing had ever happened. The emotions he shared over the bond were levelheaded and very controlled, and he hadn’t looked at Tony once. Not directly. Occasionally, in very short bursts, Tony felt confusion and shock leak through the bond he now seemed to share with Rogers. Tony’s eyes felt drawn to him, then, though he resisted making eye contact. And whenever Tony was talking to someone else, he felt eyes boring into him from afar. Eyes that—for some cruel reason he still couldn’t understand—shone golden.

Afterwards, right after the initial debrief and check-up at SHIELD, Tony saw Rogers following him through the hallways. Hell, he _felt_ Rogers following him. He was still in his battle-worn uniform, hair sweaty, skin full of dust and grime, cowl pushed back on his shoulders. He’d seen Rogers bleed, he’d seen the wound on his abdomen, and while there was a compression bandage around his lower torso, medical had otherwise declared him perfectly healthy.

Healthy, and obviously capable of trailing behind Tony like a Golden Retriever in pursuit.

The guy was keeping his distance for the moment, but he was still following him. He was probably waiting for an opening, and that meant he wanted to talk about this, and Tony didn’t know if he was ready for that.

Likely not.

“Stark,” Rogers called, as Tony rounded the last corner that would lead him to the exit, and gradually quickened his pace. Which basically meant he had caught up to Tony in a matter of seconds.

Tony sighed in defeat, and stopped in his tracks. Then, he quickly opened the door next to them. He stepped into what seemed to be another conference room, similar to the one he’d just left, and closed the door after Rogers stepped inside.

He made the mistake of actually looking at the guy, forgetting for a second what he would see there, before he averted his gaze and instead stared out of the large front windows. “Look, there’s really nothing to talk about.”

Rogers remained where he was and only leaned back against the doorframe. “I just don’t understand why. I was born over ninety years ago, how’s it possible that—”

“No why’s, no how’s,” Tony said with a somewhat shrill voice and whirled around, looking at Rogers without _looking_ at him. “I have a girlfriend, did you know that? It’s a thing. Everyone knows about me and Pepper. She’s my person. We’ve been together for over half a year now, and I… don’t even know you. So whatever you thought would happen now—”

Rogers’ jaw ticked, and Tony felt anger rush through the bond, as his expression hardened. “What makes you think _I_ would want this? You’re not exactly someone I’d imagined to be my—”

“Ah ah ah,” Tony said with a raised hand. Then he rubbed his temple. He would have nightmares about this. This was one giant nightmare. “I…” He sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t want to—I’m sure you’re a great guy, Rogers, I’m just… not interested. Really not. I love Pepper, and you’re clearly not interested either so… can we just _please_ pretend this never happened?”

Rogers stopped short and frowned, then sighed with resignation and glanced down. “I would. I’m not sure that’s… possible. My ma, she used to tell me—”

Tony held up a hand. It took a few seconds, but he gathered the nerve to look back at Rogers, trying not to completely lose it at the sight of his golden eyes. He’d always somehow imagined it to just be a shimmer… but Rogers’ eyes were pure molten gold. “Hold on. Your parents were…” He gestured between them. “That?”

Rogers had the nerve to roll his eyes at him. “Yeah, _that_ ,” he said, like he thought Tony was ridiculous for not putting a name to it. A shadow fell over his eyes, then, and he cleared his throat, looking on the ground. “They were great together. Before he started to…” He trailed off, and shook his head. “Yeah, they were. Couldn’t stay apart for long.”

“Because they _loved_ each other.”

Rogers hummed, considering him. “They did.”

“See?” Tony pointed out. “We don’t. I’m not even into guys, so this has to be a mistake. I’m not into you.”

Rogers glared at him. “I’m not stupid, Stark. And you were very clear the first time around.”

Was he put off? He actually seemed to be put off about this.

“What—are you…” He gestured at Rogers. “Into that?”

“What?” Rogers asked, frowning. “Men? I don’t… _No_ , I haven’t exactly… it wasn’t really an option in my time, so… No. I think.”

“You _think?_ ”

Rogers glared at him. “How would I know? The only person I ever wanted was…” He stopped himself, and the expression on his face turned so inexplicably tormented, that Tony had to look away for a second. Rogers shook his head as if to clear it and took a deep breath. “A woman.”

“Great,” Tony exclaimed over the awkward silence. “We’re both not into dicks, then. So this,” he gestured between them, “is clearly just some weird error. False alarm. I’m sure stuff like that happens all the time.”

Rogers sighed heavily, a potent cocktail of emotions roaring through the bond. “Whatever makes you sleep at night,” he said after a moment, and shouldered his shield. “I’m gonna go.”

“Yeah, great. Do that.” _Please just leave._ “See you when I see you.”

Rogers cast him a last look, a last flash of golden eyes, before he nodded shortly and was out of the door a second later.

Tony expelled a deep, shuddering breath and slumped down heavily on one of the chairs.

It had been an error. It had to be.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Inviting Bruce to Stark Tower, before he could rush off to Malaysia or wherever he wanted to go hiding this time, had obviously been one of Tony’s brighter ideas. Not only did he now have someone around him who could actually understand what he was talking about on a daily basis—he also had an expert on the whole PI theory under his roof.

When Tony had walked out of SHIELD headquarters earlier, he could somehow still sense where Rogers was, even when he could not see him. It seemed once the bond had been acknowledged there was no way to ignore it any longer. It was a frightening talent. He’d known, theoretically, that soulmates were supposed to be able to sense their mate’s emotions, but now that he got a live show of the whole shtick, he was excessively weirded out by it. It was feeling without context, raw emotions without a story to them, and while Tony could piece together a vague idea of what Rogers was going through, he could never be _sure_.

After their little talk in the conference room, Rogers had walked back down the hallway, and wherever he was now, it had to be a private space, because Tony could immediately feel the tension pour out of Rogers’ body. And then, it felt like Rogers was simply staring out onto the city beneath him. Tony couldn’t quite put a name on the feeling that clearly expelled every other thought going through Rogers’ head. There was confusion, anger, hurt, disbelief, but there was something else, something raw and strong and…

Tony paused and forced a reign on his thoughts. He didn’t care what Rogers went through. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t his own burden to carry, and—

Numbness. Rogers felt numb.

And God, Tony could relate to that. He walked towards Bruce’s new lab without feeling his legs, without even registering the excited and thankful words every one of his employees was throwing at him on his way up.

He really felt himself losing it. Better to get to Bruce before his emotional state initiated a self-destruct sequence (a.k.a. alcohol) of probably very bad tidings. Better to do it now when he still felt somewhat attached to his surroundings. He had to face this at some point. He had to get this burden off his chest. He needed advice, and there was no where else to turn.

Everything was so irreversibly screwed up, and he didn’t know where to even begin fixing it. The only thing he knew was that Pepper would return to New York in only a couple of hours, and she would be happy and teary-eyed that he’d made it out alive, and he wasn’t ready for that. God, he wasn’t ready.

“Quick question,” Tony started, as he entered Bruce’s new lab. “Friendship imprints. That’s a thing, right?”

Bruce looked up from the holographic table in front of him, silent for a few seconds, before he raised both eyebrows. “Imprints? Why are you— Aren’t you the poster boy for all anti-PI-movements?”

“Yeah.” Tony sighed. “I just… you’re one of the lead scientist in that field, yeah? You believe in it?”

Bruce gave him a crooked smile. “It’s not about belief. PIs are sufficiently measurable in the brainwaves, as I’m sure you are aware of. The facts—”

“It’s not a _fact_ ,” Tony ground out, and yeah, that was stupid, come to think of it. He knew it was a fact, he knew _firsthand_ that it was a fact… He just, God, he still couldn’t believe this. “You know—whatever,” Tony said. “But there are different kinds of bonds, right? It doesn’t always have to be romantic?”

“That’s… still highly controversial.” Bruce shrugged. “The research is too new and PIs are generally too rare to really give a profound answer to that. Every bondpair I came across so far eventually developed a romantic investment. Is there a reason you’re asking or—”

“How do you know?”

Bruce raised an eyebrow at him. “What? That a person is your soulmate?”

“Yes.”

“Oh you know. Believe me. The golden eyes, it doesn’t get much clearer than that. Aside from that…” He trailed off for a moment, and tabbed on a window on the holographic interface. He pushed it upwards, so that the image now floated in the air between them.  There were several EEG and MRI scans, and Tony had seen those in the magazine before. The timing of the spikes between the two persons was almost identical. It was a correspondence between two brains that shouldn’t be possible, and yet, there it was. “And there’s the bond,” Bruce said, zooming in on one of the spikes. “It makes it possible to give the bondpartners insight into the mental state of the PI.” There was a longer pause, and Bruce squinted at him from the other side of the holograph. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing,” Tony said. “No reason. I’m just…” He sighed. “God, Bruce, I’m so confused.”

Rogers was his mate. There was no second-guessing that. After so many years of firmly believing that he didn’t belong to anyone, that this was a decision he could freely make, he now had a deep clarity etched into his body that this was the person who was meant to share his life with him.

A heavy sigh rushed through Tony’s lips. He had to ignore this. He had to try. Had to get to Pepper and just be as far away from Steve Rogers as possible.

“You look a little green,” Bruce said with another of his quirked smiles.

“Very funny.”

“No, I mean it. You look like you’re about to vomit any second.”

Tony put his face in both hands, fighting an upcoming headache. He walked over to one of the chairs and sat down heavily. “This is so messed up.”

Bruce sat down beside him. “All right. Who is it?”

“What?”

“You found her? Your soulmate?”

Tony let out a breathless laugh. “Yeah. Something like that.”

Bruce nodded. There was an odd, almost reverent look of consideration in his eyes. “That’s tough, but I’m sure Pepper will understand.”

Tony looked up sharply, gesturing at Bruce’s face with his index finger. “What? I won’t leave Pepper. I love her. I _choose_ to love her. That means a whole lot more than some destiny bullshit.”

Bruce leaned back, as he considered him. “I know where you’re coming from, but… the way I see it, it _is_ a choice. A PI just makes you aware of the one person who fits your personal traits best. No matter how much it feels like life takes away that decision, it is _you_ who develops in a certain way that makes it impossible not to surrender to your mate’s soul.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a choice to me.”

Bruce petted his shoulder a little awkwardly. “You’ll come around to the idea.”

Anger and frustration pillowed on the verge of eruption. Instantly, he felt an answering surge of confusion from Rogers’ side of the bond. Tony felt it—and it only took that final push that really made him want to make someone feel marginally as bad as he did right now. However, he maintained control and inwardly counted to ten. Do not take it out on Bruce, he encouraged himself rationally.

Tony rubbed his temple and took a deep breath. “What if I don’t want to?”

Silence stretched over the laboratory for a moment. Bruce sighed. “You _can_ live without your PI. A few people I met did, and there’s no indicator that it isn’t possible. The bond won’t force you to fall in love, Tony. It’s just… you’ll have to accept the fact that you have the chance of fulfillment, of happiness, right in front of you, and not act on it.”

“I love Pepper. I won’t just stop loving her. I can be happy with her, too.”

Bruce grimaced. Then, he exhaled a long, deep breath. “You can try.”

There was a heavy pause at that.

“You think there’s really no getting out of this, are you?”

A pause. There was something frighteningly neutral about the look on Bruce’s face. Something Tony couldn’t quite put his finger on. “I can’t imagine how someone could live with the constant reminder that this one person meets every one of your character traits in a way that would complement you and not… and not want to have that,” came the simple, soft-spoken rejoinder. He cleared his throat. “Or… Steve could die.”

A sudden wave of agony crashed over Tony, and he had to reach out to the counter to keep his balance before grief could send him to the ground. “No,” he gasped. “He can’t.” Then he blinked and stared up at Bruce in complete shock. “What the _fuck_ ,” he rasped. “I didn’t… I didn’t tell you _who_ …”

Bruce shrugged with a little self-satisfied smile. “Just a shot in the dark. Sorry. I saw how you both kept looking at each other the whole day. It looked really intense, it just didn’t make sense until now.”

Tony groaned, before an involuntarily laugh crossed his lips. “I don’t fucking believe this. I’m not even gay.”

“A PI doesn’t care for gender. It solely cares for personality traits. You know that.”

“Well and my dick solely cares for women.”

“I’m sure your dick will come around.”

Tony groaned, face-planting on the desk in front of him. “Not helping, Bruce.”

He clasped his shoulder. “It got a little color on your face. Just breathe. It’ll be fine.”

“My soulmate is a male blonde All-American body builder, with a severely distressing 40s morality, a bad habit to actually do what Fury tells him, and—oh—he also hates my guts. Enlighten me, o’ Big Green, how is this ever going to be fine?”

At first, there was nothing. The look in Bruce’s eyes could not be read.

“You’re lucky,” he started eventually, which prompted a loud snort from Tony. “No, you _are_ —even if you don’t see it now. Finding your soulmate, and actually having the opportunity to be with him? That statistically happens about twenty times a year, Tony.”

Tony took a deep, shuddering breath. Rogers was his _soulmate_ , there was no way to work around that. Steve Rogers, the guy who wore high-waisted grandpa trousers and who generally looked like carrying out an order was _this_ close to giving him a happy time—that guy was his soulmate. The person who was meant to complement him. Complement him, how? What was there to think about that? For now, he would go with passive acceptance. There would be plenty of time to curse the card that fate had dealt him.

“Anyway, it does get easier,” Bruce said, shaking him out of his thoughts.

“What? Liking dicks?”

Bruce huffed a laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t know about that—No, having a bondmate. The bond is strongest when it’s first formed.” He pointed to the EEG scans. “Your minds use the exact same frequency right now, and I know it’s uncontrolled and overwhelming, but the emotions that are involuntarily exposed through the connection should subside considerably with time. The bond will always be there, but you will be able to control what you want to share with Steve.”

Tony sighed, and stared out of the large windows. There was a thick mist surrounding the skyscrapers and construction cranes all around the city.

“So… that means if I get through the first months, I’m gonna be able to shut him out?”

Bruce leaned back and looked at him strangely. “If you’ll want to, then yes. You should be able to mostly ignore him with time.”

Tony closed his eyes and couldn’t help the wave of relief hitting the bond’s edges. The whole thing might be inevitable, but it didn’t have to change anything. His feelings for Pepper were still the same. The bond hadn’t changed that. He could love Pepper and keep on loving her in spite of everything that had happened today.

Screw fate, he had a choice.

He could do this.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He couldn’t do this.

While Pepper was often away from home, hopping from one business trip to another, Tony felt Rogers every minute of the day. For _weeks_ , he lay awake every night. He lay awake, and thought of Rogers. He felt him struggle to find sleep. Felt it, couldn’t sleep either, and spent hours just trying to block the guy from his head.

Whatever Bruce had said—for now, it only seemed to get worse. Even though Rogers was supposed to be on some motorcycle-tour through America, he felt his presence so strongly it slowly drove him crazy. He flinched whenever Rogers’ knuckles split on a punching bag, he was almost brought to tears when the despair of being stranded in this new world got too much for Rogers to bear it, and an involuntary smile rose to his lips, every time Rogers discovered something new—something he liked.

But God, the line refused to end there.

Whatever Rogers felt, he did, too. And that meant he also got horny whenever Rogers did. It didn’t even happen particularly often, but it _did_ happen, and—well, Rogers was a guy in his twenties, so Tony could hardly begrudge him that. The problem was: It didn’t matter where he was, or what he did, or with whom he talked to—as soon as Rogers’ dick asked for some attention, Tony got a hard-on. It didn’t matter how often he told himself that it had nothing to do with him—his cock was rock hard in seconds, and eventually he would give in, stop whatever he’d been doing, run somewhere private, and jerk himself off.

It was good that Pepper wasn’t in Malibu all that often—that was… great, really—so any disaster that could’ve possibly resulted out of this hadn’t occurred so far.

That wasn’t the worst, though. The worst was: with Rogers, the arousal _always_ seemed to come with an under layer of shame—and it was disturbing to feel that. Either the guy actually had a problem with giving himself some loving, or because he _knew_ that Tony knew, and didn’t know how to deal with that.

The bond only seemed to strike at intervals—sometimes he wasn’t able to sense Rogers, even when he was actively looking. And sometimes, he couldn’t hide from him at all, and it took every ounce of concentration to effectively shut him out.

Still. There was nothing else for him. He had Pepper, and he was lucky to have her, and there was nothing else to be done other than wait until things got easier.

He ignored the inner voice that screamed a more logical solution: To just go to the guy and talk to him. Find a way through this together. However, just the thought of actually seeing Rogers and his golden eyes right now made him tremble with confusion and self-consciousness far more than his panic attacks about New York ever managed. After only a few months, Rogers knew more of him than anyone ever had. He couldn’t hide from him, and couldn’t hold back whenever his emotions got the better of him. Seeing Rogers, talking to him, would make this real—would make this more than just another person’s mind polluting his.

Rogers’ golden eyes had crawled under his skin and made themselves a home there. He was a nasty, incurable virus that was slowly consuming Tony whole. And in the light of that, perhaps it was wise that he stayed away. If Rogers showed up here now, Tony couldn’t tell what he would say to him.

Tony sighed and shifted around, until he was facing the empty side of the bed. Rogers was wide-awake—wherever he was right now. Awake, lonely, and lost in thought—which was kind of the status quo when it came to Rogers’ mind, these days. Anyway, he was awake, and that meant Tony wouldn’t be able to get any sleep, either.

He felt him thinking… felt the rush of faint, wordless thoughts. They trailed him wherever he went, followed him around every turn. They were thoughts without form—he knew there was meaning behind them, but couldn’t understand. There were no questions to answer, no words that were spoken. Just Rogers’ mind. Raw. Everywhere. All the time. Rogers never stopped thinking, his brain was a network of millions impulses that itched to find their destinations.

So, Rogers might be a righteous asshole, but his mind was… sort of beautiful.

The shrill sound of his cellphone echoed through the vacant room, startling Tony out of his reverie.

“It’s Miss Potts for you, sir,” JARVIS supplied helpfully.

Tony rose apologetically and quickly scurried to the other side of the room. While he missed Pepper deeply, he mostly wished she would leave him in peace when he was like this—exposed and vulnerable, and confused as fuck.

He answered the phone on the sixth ring. When Pepper’s face appeared, her hair was tied in a perfect bun, her skin as radiant as ever, and yet—she looked bone tired.

“Miracles do happen,” Tony said with a faux-gasp. “Are we actually talking? Is this a phone-call?”

Pepper rolled her eyes at him with a smirk on her lips. “I’m sorry. The meeting was endless.”

“Thought so. Why are you even calling on the phone?”

“JARVIS told me you muted the line in your room, but I figured you’d be awake still, so…”

Tony looked to the side and cringed. He’d been awake all right. “Deal’s safe?”

Pepper bit her lip as she opened her bun and let her auburn hair cascade over her shoulders. “You really need to ask?”

“Atta girl,” Tony said with a proud voice. He was pacing, now, but more to keep moving than out of anxiety. “So it worked out with… how’d you put it? ‘Charmingly ignorant personal association’?”

There was a pause. Then Pepper cleared her throat and dropped something that sounded like a pen. “Swanson was actually quite nice.”

“Was he now,” Tony replied conversationally, and arched an eyebrow at her.

Pepper’s lips quirked upwards. “Nice and not my type. How was your day?”

_I wanked to the feeling of another man wanking._

“Lots of work in the shop. Yours?”

Pepper shrugged. “Busy but fun.”

A crooked smile played on his face as he replied, “Yeah. Busy. I noticed.”

Pepper plopped herself down on the bed of her hotel room. He could see her rolling her eyes at the ground, while she pulled off her high heels, but otherwise, she didn’t answer.

More silence. Silence in a phone call. Not good. When things threatened to grow uncomfortable, Tony sighed loudly and threw himself back on the bed, too, holding the phone up so his face was still visible in the phone’s camera. “This used to be easier.”

Pepper smiled at him, and nodded. “I’ve never been away that long before. I’m sorry, this is taking much longer than I thought it would.”

“Have you missed me?”

“Of course I’ve missed you,” she replied gently, her voice dropping a few degrees. “I’ll be home in two weeks,” she assured him. “I just need to grab a few hours of sleep. I have an early meeting tomorrow.”

Tony nodded in understanding. “Of course. Don’t feel bad about it, I was about to go in the shop, anyway. Just… don’t be a stranger.”

Pepper’s eyes softened. “Never.” There was a pause, and Pepper cocked her head, considering him. She looked at him as though she couldn’t figure him out. But this wasn’t anger. This wasn’t coldness. This was something different.

This was heartache.

“Tony, are you all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked slowly. “I’m peachy. Working, eating, sleeping, I’m good.”

Silence filled the room.

“Good,” Pepper said, then, attempting and failing to conceal her disappointment. She flashed him a little smile, which he answered in kind. She looked to the side, then, turning off the light on her nightstand. “Good night, Tony.”

As quickly as it had come, the hum of Pepper’s voice had faded and the room fell still. He was left with silence once more.

Tony stared at himself in the dark phone display for several long seconds. He didn’t look _good_ , he looked drawn and exhausted. Of course Pepper was worried.

Tony sighed. The guilt over not telling her stretched his every nerve, and it was intolerable at times. Whenever he was alone, in the shop, or walking through their empty house, studying the clean, shiny walls—all he could do was count the seconds as he remembered Rogers’ eyes. And every time he was thinking of Pepper, he was confronted horribly with how she would react if she found out about it.

To be fair, he’d wanted to tell her, after New York. After the dramatics of the palladium poisoning, he’d promised to never again keep life-changing events a secret. Finding your soulmate probably fell under that category—still, after they’d arrived back in Malibu, he hadn’t found it in him to burden her with this. He’d opened his mouth, just on the verge of telling her—but Pepper had been so terrified to lose him after the Battle of New York, that he just couldn’t do that to her, to put that weight on her shoulders, too.

Aside from Bruce, only Rhodey knew. And Rhodey only knew because he’d found out himself. He had had the honor of first-handedly witnessing one particularly bad roller coaster of emotions that he and Rogers pushed at each other over the bond, and at the end of it all, Tony had almost dissolved into tears and —there really had been no option but telling him the truth.

A wave of annoyance surged through the bond, and Tony rolled his eyes. Rogers always hated it when he was guilt tripping over not telling Pepper.

 _Stuff it. My choice_ , he thought, even though he knew Rogers couldn’t exactly read his mind. Thanks heaven for small favors.

He moved around, sat up and started to pull on some sweatpants, before he made his way down to the workshop.

It didn’t have to mean anything. Nothing would change. This soulmate thing would _not_ be life changing—that was the point. He just had to be patient, until things got easier. He had to accept this as a part of his life. After all, he had no one to blame for this. Not Rogers, not himself.

It was a prank, a universal prank, and he needed to learn to work around it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

No matter how hard the bond was pushing him, he forced himself to ignore Rogers' whereabouts, and refrained from looking up his location via SHIELD’s systems. Still, he knew from a sense of homecoming that tickled over the bond that Rogers had returned to New York a few weeks ago. He also knew that he now went on missions for SHIELD—mostly with Barton and Romanov. He was a good leader, it seemed—capable, headstrong, and confident.

Tony also knew that Rogers had started to go out on dates and apparently enjoyed himself. Which, hey, was good for him. He got excited in the evenings, and while he still carried around the burden of loss, he seemed… happy. Or _happier_ , at least. He laughed a lot, and he was easy-going, as well as easily charmed by whatever that woman—or women—talked to him about.

And Tony sure as hell didn’t get jealous when, one evening, Rogers’ excited mind suddenly fell very still at what Tony supposed was his first kiss with the lady. He felt him surrendering after a couple of stunned seconds, and Tony really tried to keep his mind as blank as possible, so he wouldn’t disturb him.

“Tony,” Rhodey said, his voice deceptively calm. When Tony looked up, he was pointedly staring down at his hand, eyebrows raised, and—Oh. He’d broken the glass of beer, the liquid and shards were spilling all over the wooden table. The people that sat at the tables around them already started to take photos with their smartphones.

Well, shit.

Tony sighed, and grabbed for a couple of napkins. “Sorry,” he said. The biker bar was eerily quiet around them, and it took a few seconds until the conversations continued.

“Let me guess,” Rhodey said. “Rogers?”

Tony shrugged. “It’s distracting.”

“And you still haven’t talked to Pepper.”

“Nope, can’t say that I have,” he said, his tone cold but moderate. “Not since she left for Tokyo, anyway.”

“That was a week ago. Did you know Pepper’s been calling me asking if I know anything? I don’t know what to tell her, Tones. You need to talk to her.”

Tony sighed, not quite meeting Rhodey’s eyes. “She’s busy. She literally has several hundred things on her plate. I don’t want to bother her, that’s all.”

There was a pause. Rhodey arched a brow coolly, obviously determined to remain reasonable. “Since when does Tony Stark care if he bothers someone?”

Tony cleared his throat, looking around him, before he leaned closer. “I’m never sure if I’m interrupting something. And she’s barely got a few minutes to spare each day, so I—”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Shit like that _never_ kept you. Ask her to make the time. This is important, Tony. She deserves to know about Steve.”

Tony sighed heavily. “That’s none of your—”

“What, _business_? Oh don’t give me that bullshit. You’re just trying to chicken out of this, man. You avoid talking to her because you don’t want to face the truth.”

Tony’s eyes widened with blazes of unkempt fury that he’d tried so hard to repress. A fire burning with a low enough glow to remain unnoticed until the final sparks started to lighten up. “And what would that be?”

Rhodey sighed. “It’s hypocrisy, what you’re doing. You tell me you want to stay with her, no matter what happens between you and Rogers, but you don’t act on it. You _owe_ that woman the truth.”

Tony scowled. “I have to deal with this myself before I talk to her, that’s all. This bond crap just needs some time before it wears down. And… this isn’t something you can very well discuss over a fucking phone call. I’m dealing, okay? I’m doing what I have to do.”

“No. You’re doing what you _want_ to do,” Rhodey said with a sad expression. “This will hurt her no matter what, Tones, and prolonging it will hurt far more than a clean cut will.”

Tony held up a hand, blinking when he felt a wave of frustration through the bond—probably because Tony had mucked up Rogers’ first-kiss-happiness. And what a damn shame that was. The moment was fleeting, though, as Rogers tried to block him then, and mostly succeeded. “I won’t cut anything. Why is everyone so fucking sure that this is going to end badly?”

The defeat waving across Rhodey’s features certainly had a sobering ring to it. “It’s… not just the soulmate thing with Rogers, and I know you don’t want to hear that—but Tony—how often exactly have you talked to Pepper over the past couple of weeks? And you don’t even seem to be bothered by it.” His arms crossed and he leaned back in his chair with a perked brow, studying him a bit too close for comfort.

“So what. You think we wouldn’t have worked out anyway? That what you’re saying?”

“What I’m saying is…” Rhodey started carefully, “that maybe you’re both too busy for a relationship with each other. The two of you were always great together, and I know you love her, Tones, and I know she loves you, but maybe it was wrong to try taking your friendship and turning it into—”

He leapt to his feet at that. The conversations around them died immediately, and Tony took a quick look around the bar, before he stalked towards the exit with undisguised rage, nearly running over two small kids as he went. He didn’t even try to hide his emotions from the bond and it was both irritating and commendable when Rogers didn’t respond.

He heard Rhodey follow him, and there was a hand on his shoulder before he reached the Iron Man suit he’d parked in front of the biker bar. “I won’t leave her,” he grit out over his shoulder. “I just have to push through this until the damn bond is weak enough to ignore it.”

“Right. Keep me updated how that works out for you.”

Tony felt himself trembling, and—it bothered him to show weakness like this, but on the other hand, he was well aware of his emotional limitations. After subjecting himself to this _horror_ of Rogers’ emotional hijacks, his resolve had worn down. Every day his resolve was breaking a little more, and Tony hated breaking.

Rhodey squeezed his shoulder gently. “It’ll get better, Tones.”

“’Cause it can’t get worse, right?”

The answering silence was not inspiring.

Tony sighed, turning around slowly. The crowd behind them was giving them funny looks again. “All right,” he breathed out. “Let’s just go back to my place. And then you’ll tell me what is really going on with this Mandarin guy. The whole country’s up in a scare.”


	2. Doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Thanks so much for your lovely comments, here and on tumblr, as well as each kudo. I'm so relieved you guys liked this so far <3

Christmas came and went in a blur. The Mandarin, the bombs, Happy, and then—everything turned to shit within hours. First, he lost his home, then his suits, and he almost lost Pepper. And while he managed to free her of Extremis, things never really returned to what they were before.

Tony didn’t know what he’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t what he’d received. He remembered standing there, watching his suits explode all around him, feeling Pepper’s hand in his, their fingers entwined, their bodies joined by the heat coursing through her veins—and he’d never felt more alone. They’d defeated the Mandarin. Together. They’d made it out. They were alive. And for a few, blissful days, it almost seemed like they could go back and pretend nothing had changed between them—but like every dream, it didn’t last.

Eventually, life caught up with them. Pepper had to leave for another weeklong business trip. Their daily phone-calls turned shorter every day, and eventually they only managed to get a hold on each other two or three times a week. Phone-calls were replaced by text messages and emails and eventually, Tony found himself sitting in the shop, outlining new designs for a suit. The very next day, he was spiraling through the clouds above New York as though he’d never stopped.

It was February when Fury called him in on his first post-Chitauri Avengers mission, to defeat an army of green goblin-like aliens that tried to invade Earth.

Because, apparently, things like that were happening now.

The second he crossed the threshold to the Helicarrier’s Commando area, he knew Rogers was already there, and—against his own will—he felt himself almost collapse in relief. He’d reached his breaking point—every day since the Mandarin had been a breaking point, and he couldn’t take it anymore. The bond was still so strong and he needed to see him, if only for the yearning in his head to stop for a while.

And then, over the span of the conference room, Rogers’ eyes found his, and for whatever reason, everything else stopped mattering. The ache stopped, and the mental war he’d been fighting was put on pause. Nothing else was important right then, aside for the golden eyes locked on his.

Roger looked so different. No 40s hairstyle anymore, new uniform, and while his shoulders were tense, he was visibly at ease with his surroundings. There was intensity to his gaze that hadn’t been there before and the relieved expression in Rogers’ golden eyes was Tony’s utter undoing.

No one had ever looked at him like that.

Tony knew the last weeks had done a number on the two of them. Whenever things had started to get dicey, he hadn’t been able to control his emotions at all. All the despair, all the uncertainty, the horror of his fight with Aldrich Killian had surged over the bond without any form of restraint. And now, Rogers looked as though he knew everything about Tony—and God, he did, didn’t he? Rogers looked at him like he could read his darkest thoughts.

It was captivating, and Tony had a hard time paying attention to what was going on with those goblin guys. But then again… it didn’t seem to be all that important, anyway.

When they headed out and faced the so called ‘army’ that had entrenched itself in Grand Central Station, it turned out to be nothing more than a group of little green goblins, with very bad taste in clothing and no apparent skills in fighting.

“Whatcha say, Cap?” he asked Rogers, opening his faceplate. They were standing back to back—surrounded by six or seven goblins. “You take the two over there, I’ll handle the three over here?”

A pause.

“Why should you get three?”

Tony glanced over his shoulder and flashed Rogers a cocky grin. “Because I called it.”

Rogers rolled his eyes at him, but there was a smile tucking at the corners of his mouth. “Not if I beat you to it.”

“Loser buys food?”

“Fine,” Rogers said, grinning. “Got yourself a deal.”

They moved at the same time, launching headfirst into their enemies. He fired repulsor-blasts at Steve’s shield, and Steve in turn directed it around the hall as though they’d been doing this all their lives. Soon enough, Tony felt a familiar rush of excitement surge through his veins, and it wasn’t long before he whooped with joy. God, it had been too long. Far too long since he had lost himself in a decent spot of action.

Still. Their first impression hadn’t been wrong. The aliens were so laughably harmless that they didn’t even bother killing them. They surrendered soon enough, and let themselves be manhandled into SHIELD’s giant refrigerator with almost zero resistance. The whole thing was… too easy, but there was nothing to be done about that.

No victims was a job well done. The hostages were safe, and after a quick check-up with SHIELD, they could all return home safely.

Two hours and one visit to the nearest takeaway place later, it was Tony jogging down the hallway to catch up with Rogers.

“Where are you going now?” he called, and then, because the world was a shitty place and he couldn’t stop himself, “Back to your agent?”

Rogers huffed irritably, as he came to a halt. “That’s none of your business,” he said shortly, and resumed walking towards what Tony assumed were his private rooms on the Triskelion. What with being Commander Rogers and all.

In the next hallway, Rogers opened a door and walked over the threshold, without closing the door. That was invitation enough, so Tony followed him and closed the door behind himself.

Rogers turned around, eyeing him with a frown. “You should go back to Miss Potts. Sharon will be here any minute,” he said, and then trailed off in gentlemanly stupor. It was so singularly characteristic that Tony felt like punching him in the face.

There were words. They just were not forthcoming. A flash of anger rushed up his spine.

_Sharon._

Rogers must have sensed his mood, as he turned around. “What is your problem,” he said, pointing between them. “I feel your resentment every time I’m with her, and it’s like you don’t want me to—”

“Damn right I don’t want you to!” Tony yelled.

“Then _what_ is it that you want?”

Tony took a step forward. “I want this to stop!” It sounded like a mantra he’d recited to himself. “Do you think it’s easy for me to suddenly laugh out loud during a meeting? To almost burst into tears while I give an interview? To get a hard-on in the middle of a conversation?”

Rogers blushed faintly, and looked down. “I have needs. I already… limit myself, but I… I have needs, too.” He swallowed. Visibly. “Do you think this is easy for me? I’m getting crazy. I can’t—I can’t work, I can’t think, I can’t go on longer missions. I feel useless, and I need to get away from this.” He glanced up at Tony with resignation. “You’re in my head every minute of the day, and I know that you—”

“I _don’t_.” Tony defiantly rose to his feet and paraded across the room.

“I can _feel_ you. _Thinking_ about me. Even when you’re with her, I can—”

“Don’t you dare talk about Pepper.”

Rogers’ mouth ticked upwards. “I know you haven’t even told her. Your guilt is… Do you think this is fair to her?”

“How would _you_ know?” Tony barked, racing at him before he could reply. He leaned up at Rogers, staring him down. “You’re a nervous wreck every time you spend time with _Sharon_. You can’t hide from me,” he pestered, “Tell me again, how many relationships did you have before her?”

There was definitely a measure of glee in how quickly the pleasant look on Rogers’ face melted into a scowl. “Careful, Stark,” he warned.

“Right, _one_. And not even that, huh? What was her problem? No, wait, don’t tell me… didn’t pike her interest before you got all muscly, huh?” Tony sighed wistfully. “Guess your inner beauty didn’t suffice.”

Rogers’ face darkened and he looked on the edge of either punching Tony or starting to cry. “Go to hell,” he eventually ground out, and walked past him.

“Oh,” Tony cooed, eyes sparkling. “Struck a nerve. Guess I was right, then. It was the muscle that did it. Lemme guess… after the transformation, she looked onto your perfect new body, and told you what a really, _really_ good man you were, and that she wouldn’t mind taking you out… dancing or something of the likes—you know, now that you’d actually be able to look her in the eyes while—”

Rogers rammed a hand down on the table next to him.

A cold, still beat.

His eyes flashed the way they did when he was on his last nerve. He held up a hand in some last effort to regain his composure. “Let it go, Stark. I won’t say it again,” he whispered, his voice somewhat shaken, as he turned around again.

And then Tony said something stupid.

Really stupid.

“Or you’ll what?”

Rogers’ nostrils flared, his arms suddenly around Tony’s waist. He shoved him hard against the wall and leaned close until his breaths rocked against Tony’s mouth. Sound drowned away in favor of hard, strangled gasps, his fingers tightening around Tony’s hip, his brilliant, angry eyes consuming him for endless seconds.

It didn’t occur to Tony until that moment how close they really were now. How easy it would be to take an unprecedented turn and lose himself in an unexplored sea of possibility.

If Rogers were in his right mind, he’d punch him hard in the gut—and Tony would deserve it—and then go his way. But he clearly wasn’t in his right mind, because slowly, the anger drained from his face, his attention suddenly gripped with Tony’s mouth. His gaze was fixated, warped, angry breaths growing longer and more pronounced and Tony became thoroughly aware of a bulge pushing against his stomach.

Oh God, there was another man’s dick pressed against him and he couldn’t even sum up the power to feel repulsed.

Tony inhaled sharply. This had the potential of getting very bad very fast.

Really gotta push him away.

Rogers robbed him of option. The next thing he knew, Rogers’ mouth had consumed his. Consumed in every sense. And for whatever reason, Tony’s lips fell open against Rogers’ prodding tongue, an embarrassingly hard whimper tearing out of his throat as his mind fell silent under the sensation. Logic dissipated completely, rendering him thoroughly blank and helpless against the assault.

This was so wrong, and he knew there was something he forgot—knew he had every reason not to do this—but Jesus, Rogers tasted good. So good. Good in ways he never thought possible. The hint of mouthwash, sweat, adrenalin; he was raw and masculine in ways Tony hadn’t sampled. In ways he’d never thought he’d found appealing. Rational thought washed away. God, he’d never felt fire like this. Not once. It was unparalleled and overwhelming, and for a wonderful instant, he wanted to fall completely into Rogers’ arms.

Weeks of separation had him thoroughly broken. His mouth burned with that taste, and he couldn’t remember that he’d never been kissed like this. Like he was anything beyond Tony Stark. Steve growled into his mouth, his teeth nipping, and the strokes of his tongue were damn near reverent. He sucked at his lips and imprinted himself on every cell, which made Tony who he was.

“Fuck,” Tony gasped, as he pulled his lips away to catch a breath. His head was so light it might as well float off into the stratosphere. “Holy shit, what—”

“Tony…”

He barely recognized Steve’s voice over his name. It was warm, and shaken, and nervous and brave, and Tony couldn’t focus, not with Steve’s lips pressing down to his throat, sucking at his skin as his hands seemed to lose their inhibitions. Steve cradled his face, his chest, his arms, and Tony’s hips had obviously taken over for his mind, because for some reason, he was now thrusting hard and fast against Steve’s erection, while his hands slipped under the uniform to explore the hard flesh that mapped his annoyingly perfect body.

God, Tony was embarrassingly close to coming in his pants. All that mattered was touching Steve, feeling his skin, feeling his mouth, feeling anything… _anything_ …

It came without warning, the bolt of logic that zapped his brain. A reminder in plain black and white of who he was, and who he was with.

“Let me go,” he grunted and pushed hard against Steve’s chest. Steve complied instantly, stumbling back like he’d been burned. The second he stepped away from him, Tony drowned in cold.

“Sorry,” Steve exhaled, his tone shaken. He looked at the ground with large, frightened eyes and hugged himself self-consciously. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me—why—”

“You just _jumped_ me?”

Steve seared him with a look that made Tony feel very small and very turned on in the same instant. “Didn’t put up much of a big fight, did you?”

“Not like I had a choice, what with that death-grip of yours, _Captain Muscle_. This is abhorrent, and repulsive, and—”

Steve huffed and pointedly looked down on Tony’s crotch.

“This is insane,” Tony decided. “You’re insane.”

“Definitely getting there…” Steve muttered, rubbing the back of his neck, as he took another step back. “The last weeks, I… When I think about you, I lose every bit of self-control and I’ve _never_ been out of control. And I’m _trying_ —But then you were… I thought I _lost_ you. For a moment it felt like you were _dead_. And I know I shouldn’t, but seeing you—”

“I have a choice!” Tony interrupted and slammed his palm on the wall next to him.

“Of course you do,” Steve said quietly.

“I never _asked_ for this. I was _happy_.”

Steve’s hands balled into fists. “Do you want me to apologize? Do you think _I_ wanted this? You’re the most irritating person I’ve ever met, you’re arrogant, and self-centered and somehow the universe decided that I am the perfect match for that? How do you think that makes me feel?”

“Oh, I’m sorry that I’m a disgrace to your soul, Captain Perfect.”

“You’re not—” Steve started. “I didn’t mean that.”

“This will _not_ happen! I won’t change!” he yelled.

Steve’s nose crunched up somewhat adorably and he tightened his arms around himself. “I didn’t say I need you to change, Tony.”

“What happened to ‘Stark’? Stop calling me Tony!”

Steve sighed. “I’m calling everyone by their first names by now. It feels weird that I wouldn’t call my—”

“Stop it!” Tony yelled. “Stop acting like this means anything. I told you I’m not into guys. I’m not into _you_ , alright? You hated my guts when we met, so stop pretending like you suddenly find the idea of a relationship with me appealing.”

“I didn’t want any of this!”

“WELL ME NEITHER,” Tony yelled. “But guess what. We don’t always get what we want.”

“I _know_ that!” Steve hissed and stepped right into Tony’s personal space again. “A year ago I had a girl. I _loved_ her. I would’ve married her in a heartbeat. I was sure I found the right partner, soulbond be damned. And now she’s ninety, and she forgets me half of the time I visit, and I am soulbound to a guy who _hates_ me. Believe me I’m aware that not all dreams fucking come true, _Stark_.”

Well, shit.

“I wish I could make it easy for you,” he said after a long moment. “I wish you could’ve gotten a Happy Ever After with your girl, I really do. I wish I could make it easy for the both of us.”

Steve expelled a deep breath, shaking his head. “Love isn’t easy. It never was.”

“Oh God, don’t call this _love_ , what is _wrong_ with you?”

Steve looked like he was about to cry. “Then tell me how to call it.” His hand settled on top of his chest, where his heart was beating underneath. “I’m still not sure if I even like you and still… you’re _there_. I _feel_ you…”

“It’s a joke, okay? A joke the universe has decided to play on us. But we choose who we love. You didn’t choose me, I didn’t choose you! _That_ should be easy to understand.”

Before Steve had a chance to reply, someone knocked at the door and a female voice seeped into the room. Tony jumped as the sound echoed and bounced off the walls, his heart settling with ache. And then a beautiful blonde girl stepped into the room and first cast Steve a blinding smile, before she gave Tony a knowing look. Steve stood very still, before he collected his leather jacket from the chair. And as he slid it over his uniform, their golden eyes caught and held.

“My greetings to Miss Potts, _Mr. Stark_.”

There were times when words could kill. This was one of those.

Tony nodded slowly—not even trying to hide the despair surging through the bond. He saw frustration flash behind Steve’s confused eyes. He held his gaze a second longer, his own flickering with sparks of fury. After a long, silent beat, Steve turned and grabbed for Sharon’s hand, stalking heatedly for the door.

And then something in Tony snapped, something wild and desperate. His resolve crumbled and suddenly a deep emptiness stabbed his heart. He didn’t know what was happening to him, only that watching Steve turn to leave with that woman made a storm curse through his body that he wasn’t strong enough to handle.

He stormed into the nearest bathroom and locked himself in. He hunched over the sink, and gripped the edge so hard he was surprised it didn’t crack.

It was too much. Everything was too much. He felt Steve hurting—hurting because of him—and he couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t tell Steve that everything would be all right, because he wasn’t convinced that it would be.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The thing with Sharon Carter was—and yes, fuck it, he’d looked her up in SHIELD’s database—it really started to get to him.

There were days when he found himself so consumed with jealousy and possessiveness that he ended up drinking himself into a stupor simply to feel indifferent. It wasn’t as though he didn’t realize how pathetic he was, but the knowledge did little to minimize the sting.

Last night had been the worst. After trying half a dozen times to simply ignore Steve and his happy mood, after promising himself over and over again that he wouldn’t let this get to him, after repeatedly wanking off so hard that his cock slightly bruised, he’d capped a new bottle of scotch and drank until he passed out.

There wasn’t one part of him that didn’t yearn for a moment of quiet in his head. Not one.

And it was only growing worse.

Whenever he was asked to help out with the goblin problem, he had to watch the two of them laughing with each other, and the surges of carefree mood and curiosity spiking through Steve’s part of the bond were driving him crazy.

“Between Tony and me, we can make it stable,” Bruce said calmly and glanced around the conference room.

There was no immediate answer, which was fair since the suggestion was fairly hard to grasp. Steve and Carter sat at the end of the table, sharing a report folder with identical expressions of deep concentration. Next to Steve, Romanov sat with almost no expression at all on her face, and Barton had consigned himself to the shadows near the staircase.

Fury sighed and glanced to one of the windows. “We will keep on sending messages to Asgard and ask for help, but trying to open a portal at this point is out of the question.”

The past few hours had been long and tense, and they only looked to get longer. They’d argued and yelled at each other, coming up with nothing. The goblins weren’t exactly a threat, yet, but their sightings got ever more frequent and they needed answers. Now.

“You can’t be sure we can handle this,” Tony said. “The next attack might be the real deal and we still don’t even know their _names_.”

“Try gremlins. Works for me,” Barton offered.

“We will make sure that Thor knows we opened the portal,” Bruce explained. “That way we only have to hold it open for a few seconds. We can close it any time we want, and we can make sure it won’t affect the Asgardians. We’ve done enough test-runs. It’s safe.”

Steve leaned forward, shaking his head. “We don’t even know that he’s actually in Asgard right now. We can’t put him on a timetable. He’ll come to us when he comes to us.”

“I can locate him,” Tony said, flipping through the pages of the report in front of him. It was fifty pages of practically zero information. God, he hated not knowing.

“It might make things worse,” Steve told him with a firm look. “If we force ourselves on him—”

“It wouldn’t be forced,” Tony argued, frowning. “We just need to know—”

“We were able to deal with the aliens so far. We’ll keep on dealing with them. This is our war, and Thor was very clear that he would come back at his own pace. We know little about Asgard’s customs and we should honor his wish until we have no other options left.”

Tony’s jaw tightened. “I just offered you a simple solution and you don’t even fucking listen to what—”

Steve’s hand landed hard on the table. “The first idea that comes to mind isn’t always the right one!”

“Taking turns until there’s no other way to go isn’t either!”

Steve bristled, his fingers shaking with anger, as he stood up to lean in Tony’s direction. “You are incapable of looking left or right, aren’t you? You get an idea in your giant brain and you stick to it no matter what.”

_What?_

Tony shoved his chair back and got into Steve’s face. He was painfully aware how every pair of eyes was on them. “What are you even _talking_ about? This is the _only_ logical—”

“I said _no_!”

The shrill ring of the alarm punctuated Steve’s sentence with a giant exclamation point. It took a second ring before it registered on anyone that they hadn’t imagined it.

Fury looked down on his watch and sighed. “New sightings in SoHo. Quinjet’s on deck three. Get your asses moving.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Pepper finally returned to New York, Tony only wanted to melt into the shadows and never resurface. Control was slipping and he realized he now thought about Steve in ways he really shouldn’t be. He wanted to kiss him again, and he wanted it badly. He wanted him in ways he’d never wanted anyone, let alone a man.

It was the bond, he was sure of that. Just the damn bond that made him feel this way.

God, everything was so messed up.

But it was there. The want of something. Something more than what the bond was giving him. It was there even if he didn’t want it. And he knew, Steve felt it, too. He took some cold comfort in that.

Cold comfort was better than nothing, and aside for his pride, it was all he had.

It was dark in the tower’s penthouse, and Pepper was already curled up on her side of the bed. Tony quietly stripped down to his boxers and lay down next to her. He wrapped an arm around Pepper’s middle, burying his face in her neck and inhaling the flowery scent of her perfume. She drew in a little breath and twisted slowly in his arms. Her sleeping face was nearly angelic—her hair was no longer straightened but slightly curly again. For a little fleeting moment, everything was all right. Pepper had returned to him, and Tony closed his eyes, willing the bond to be quiet for once.

When he woke up in the morning, Pepper’s head was still lying on his chest, her face directed away from him. She was fully dressed, though, jacket, shoes, the whole deal.

There was also a suitcase next her side of the bed.

Tony felt his limbs turning to stone. So they were doing this now. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it coming, and yet…

Even though he knew Pepper was awake, it was quiet, and the quiet left room for thoughts. Vocalization would’ve probably helped in some way—vocalization of all the little excuses his overactive brain entertained at the moment. And yet, for long minutes, he couldn’t find it in him to actually give them a voice.

His chest was wet. Pepper was crying.

“Pepper, darling…” Tony started eventually. He took a deep breath and looked down at her red hair.

There was a long pause. Minutes filled with silence, but eventually Pepper leaned up and looked at him. Her eyes were red but steady. “I know about Steve.”

He flinched. Visibly. “How?”

Pepper shook her head, blinking the tears away. “I knew something was wrong. James was always so evasive so I… I tricked JARVIS into telling me.” She shrugged nonchalantly.

Her tone was warm, and Tony understood there was no reason to lie about what was happening to him. With a sigh, he leaned forward, letting his head fall into his waiting hands. “I wanted to tell you,” he rasped, voice losing its confident backing. “It was stupid, stupid not to tell you. And I know it’s overdue, but—I’m sorry.” He paused, the word tasting wrong on his tongue. He sighed, trembling, and shifted. “I just had to figure this out myself, first, and… the bond is manipulating me. I get to the point where I feel like I really need to be close to him, you know? I’m not myself right now. It’s just physical. And I will get over it. It’s just… I was stupid. It was stupid not to tell you, Pepper. And I know I promised to—”

Pepper sighed and shook her head. Soft tears were falling over her cheeks while she held perfectly still.

“Please, don’t,” Tony pleaded quickly. “I’ll be better, I promise. I know I’ve screwed up, but I… I meant what I said. I _mean_ it, I do. I want to be with you. Please don’t cry.”

His arms ached, but his body refused to stir. And then he finally erupted, releasing the straining tension as his eyes welled with tears. “I’m a complete idiot. I just… Oh God—I—” And then he couldn’t speak, couldn’t even support himself.

Pepper studied him with an intensity that sent shivers across his skin. What he did not expect was her hand to grasp his. A shade of sympathy and faith had replaced the hurt behind her eyes. Comprehension blossomed and dawned, and he knew. Knew what she was about to say.

“It’s all okay,” she whispered with a gentle voice. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but—there’s a reason why Steve is your soulmate. There is a reason why you were given the chance to see inside him like this. We just… we need to stop this. And _you_ need to stop doing this to yourself. I want you to be happy, Tony. And I know you don’t want to hurt me.” She sat up then, and put a hand on his cheek. “But _this_ is hurting me.”

Tony swallowed and covered her hand with his. “I still love you.”

“I know that,” Pepper said with conviction. “I love you, too, Tony… You’re my best friend. It’s just… it’s not the same. Even before Steve—you know it’s not. What we had before, that was better. It was better for the both of us.”

It was the sort of silence that lasted forever. He was so confused. He was buried in avarice. And if he didn’t manage to share his inner turmoil with the one person he was supposed to love more than anyone, what did that make him?

And he realized then. Realized what Rhodey had wanted to tell him all along. This wasn’t even about Steve. This wasn’t about the bond.

Not for Pepper.

He could see it so clearly now. She was hurting too much and had been all along. And she couldn’t be with him anymore. He had been wrong—the rules of their relationship hadn’t changed after New York, they just hadn’t worked from the beginning. At every turn Tony took, Pepper had to make an amendment. If he was honest with himself, she had always been half making them up as Tony went his own way. And every time, she broke a little more and pieced herself back together before he could even notice.

Maybe it really was time to stop this.

“Tony,” Pepper said softly, her heavy eyes taking him in. “Can you look at me?”

Tony just sat, blank and numb. “You never said anything.”

“Neither did you,” she replied. There was no accusation in her voice. It was an observation and nothing more.

Tony blinked but didn’t reel in defense. There was nothing to defend; he knew it just as much as she did.

“I know,” he said after a long minute, a heavy sigh crashing down on his shoulders. “It hasn’t been easy for you, has it? Iron Man… everything…”

“It _has_ been easy.” Pepper took his hand in hers again. Their fingers entwined, their palms pressed together, and they were joined by warmth. “What we had before Vanko… that was easy.”

Tony nodded, a little smile lining up his mouth. “I really thought we could make this work.”

“I know,” Pepper whispered. “Me too.” Then she took his face in both hands and stared him down with her beautiful green eyes. “You can’t give up now. You’re better than that, Anthony Stark. I don’t want you to beat yourself up over this. It’s not your fault, you hear me? It’s not. I will have JARVIS tell you this for as long as you need to hear it. You deserve to be happy.”

Tony smiled a half-smile as he watched Pepper stand up. She took the suitcase in her hand. “I’ll move back to Malibu,” she told him, grasping her coat and moving for the door. At Tony’s defeated look, she sighed and shook her head. “I’m here for you. I’ll always be. I just need some time to… get back into being your friend.”

His eyes fell to the floor for endless seconds before finally traveling back to hers. “But you’ll come back?”

Pepper leaned down to stroke his cheek again. A small, almost girlish smile tickled her mouth, as she pressed a little kiss to his lips. Her beautiful green eyes were haunted, but spoke the truth. “As soon as I can.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The days without Pepper, without any kind of distraction, inevitably brought his full attention back to Steve. And the longer he was brought face to face with the idea that Steve might be his soulmate for a reason, the faster the anger drained from him, and the guilt that had weighted on his heart for so long disappeared.

He still didn’t understand why, and he didn’t think he ever would, but it no longer made him reel in despair. Rather, he slowly embraced the wonder that he had found his mate at all. There was this certainty in him, etched deep into his heart, that Steve would be there, for him, as long as they both breathed.

While he couldn’t exactly read Steve’s mind, or see what he was doing, sometimes he could piece together what was going through the guy’s head and after a while, Tony found himself actively listening. Steve was good to the point of pain. He was loyal, and actually really funny, when you paid attention.

And he was. Paying attention.

It didn’t take long until his mind was too lost in Steve. Looking back and pretending that his heart wasn’t affected was foolish. There had to be a reason why Steve was his other half. All this—it couldn’t just be a cosmic mix-up. Steve was meant to be his.

That realization made it considerably harder to ignore the fact that his soulmate apparently had a girlfriend now.

Tony sighed, glancing up at Bruce, who was working on one of the goblin’s weapons. They hadn’t come up with anything groundbreaking so far. Nothing they hadn’t already seen after working with Chitauri weapons, at least.

Tony walked over to the window and peeked out on the city below them. “The thing is, I don’t even know if what I’m feeling is real, or manufactured by the bond. If I knew that… I liked him, because I like him, I might come around to the idea that Rogers has, well, you know—boy parts. It would all be so much easier, if I could be _sure_ …”

Bruce looked up at him, his eyes imploring. “The bond doesn’t create feelings. I told you that.”

Tony nodded, slowly. “It’s just… it feels too intense, you know? Doesn’t feel… real.”

Bruce chuckled. “Sounds like the bond is just growing… more agitated.”

“You said it would get easier.”

“It will. Give it time. PIs don’t have an expiration date. The progress is just different for everyone.”

“I really hate this.”

Bruce smiled and clasped a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “He’s your soulmate, Tony. He’s the one person you’ll never have to doubt, don’t you understand?”

Tony sighed and stared at the sky.

Bruce was right. He just had to be patient. This time, he had to wait for Steve to come around.

Tomorrow would be better.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The day Tony handed out the new Avengers’ communicators, things between him and Steve started to change. So far, they hadn’t actually talked much with each other outside of missions. Their communication was solely based on quick commands, and this weird game of back and forth of emotions they pushed through the bond. On some days, Tony would get frustrated with his work, and Steve answered with a wave of either compassion, when he had a good day, or his specific brand of ‘self-pity is for douchebags, Tony’. And whenever Steve had this whole professional Commander-attitude going for him, Tony tried to push as much goofiness through the bond as possible.

In the end, it was easier to get through a shitty day together, and far more fun to be happy, when Steve was, too.

And now that they put words to those emotions, Tony found himself enchanted.

It had started in debriefing.

Meeting Steve again had jolted him at first, but by now, he was very much accustomed to seeing him whenever he had to go on a mission. Anyway, Steve was all concentrated—as he always was, whenever they were debriefing—and even though Tony glanced at him ever so often, he never met his gaze. His eyes were firmly stuck on Hill’s presentation.

An opportunity to tease Steve was too tempting to let it go to waste. Teasing Steve was one of life’s simple pleasures, one he’d ignored far too long. Now he knew how much fun it could be, and had since decided he had to make up for lost time.

He just needed to get his attention. Naturally, Tony started to sing a few really goofy songs in his mind. He couldn’t really tell what kind of emotion his singing produced in Steve’s head, but soon enough, his golden eyes landed on him, and he arched a brow.

Tony took the communicator in his right hand and started typing. _I can’t work like this. You’re distracting me with all that inner concentration._

Steve paused, frowned, and cast a quick glance around, before he fumbled with his belt. His eyes were directed downwards, then he rolled his eyes, and Tony could see his fingers moving.

The communicator in his hands vibrated. _Excuses._

Tony blew out an amused breath. _I never make excuses._

There was a little quirk to Steve’s mouth, as he typed for several seconds. _That’d sound a lot more convincing to a guy who wasn’t right in your head. You have an excuse for everything._

_That’s why you like it so much. Never a dull moment._

Steve snorted. _If you say so._ He paused and glanced up at Tony for a moment. _I heard about Pepper. I’m sorry._

Tony shrugged. _Plenty more fish in the sea._

Steve smiled down on his communicator. _I’m sure you’ll eventually find what you’re looking for._

_I believe I just said that using much more economic language._

At that, Steve looked up and arched an unimpressed eyebrow. _You’re economic with language now?_

Tony wiggled an eyebrow in return. _There’s very little in which I am not economic._

Steve bit his lip to suppress a grin. _Promises, promises._

“Gentlemen?” Hill asked with a pointed look to Tony’s communicator, and Tony could hear Bruce stifling a laugh next to him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“This was supposed to be an invasion,” Tony mumbled, shooting a little repulsor beam at a pebble on the sidewalk, catapulting it into the nearest gully. He leaned back on the hood of the police car and glanced up into the gray sky. “Those aliens have no respect for the rules.”

Steve snorted next to him, flipping his shield back and forth. He was stretched out on the hood, too, one leg dangling off the side. “Yeah, and you’re such a rule-follower, huh?”

Tony grinned, and shoved a shoulder against Steve’s. “Of course not. That would be boring.” He glanced at him. “However we two ended up together, huh? Not much of a kettle… pot…”

Steve shook his head. “I’ve never been much for rules, either.”

“A man after my own heart.” Tony clamped a hand over his left pectoral.

Steve smiled that quiet smile of his. They looked at each other for a long, lost minute.

“Lousy aliens,” Tony continued. The words were marginal and ridiculous; he only spoke to fill the silence and did his best to remain calm, despite the fact that Steve was so close. “Didn’t Fury say there were at least fifty of them heading for Central Station, again?”

“Yeah,” Steve replied and looked around. “All those attacks lately, they have been kind of—”

“Lame?”

Steve gave him a hard look. “No not…” He frowned. “Well, yes. It just… we don’t know anything about them. They act so harmless, but something’s bugging me. They come in with hundreds and every time we only get hold on a little group. It’s like they’re vanishing in the crowd and I… I just don’t know what to make about all this.”

Tony nodded and looked into the distance. There was a weird warm feeling in his gut he couldn’t quite place. “We’ll figure it out.”

Steve turned his head and smiled at him again. “We will.”

If there was anything he wanted to tell Steve, now would probably be the time to do it. The moment passed, though, before his voice could be convinced to speak up.

“Looks like the bad guys aren’t gonna appease us today,” Steve said and made to stand up. “I’m gonna—”

“Want me to fly you home?” Tony rushed out before he could help himself.

Steve stopped in his tracks, and his shoulders tensed, before he turned around. An adoring smile spread across Steve’s lips, and he tilted his head, golden eyes flickering. “If you’re offering.”

“I am,” Tony said, a little too fast. He cleared his throat. “Offering, I mean.”

Steve considered him for a moment, before he looked down again. “That’d be great… Thank you.”

Tony laid an arm around Steve’s waist, and there was this weird moment, when they just stared into each other’s golden eyes, before the faceplate snapped shut and the suit lifted off.

There was a giddy rush claiming Tony’s body. God this was happening, wasn’t it? This was really happening. His inner debate over his feelings for Steve wasn’t over by a long shot, but he figured being honest with himself was the first step to take.

Because… God help him, he was falling for the guy.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A bolt of fierce lust hit him. It struck him from nowhere—blazing heat spread through his body so quickly that he wondered, for an insane second, if he was going to die. A moment ago, he’d been head-deep into designing a new suit, and then, he could barely breathe anymore.

“Oh, come on,” he gasped, and his left hand began a slow massage of his erection through the denim of his jeans. “It’s two fucking a.m., Rogers,” he groaned, and eventually shoved a hand down his pants and gripped his cock.

He knew what was happening to him, and knew he could do fuck about it. It didn’t make it any less overwhelming. He stood up, tumbled down on the couch in his workshop, pushed down his pants, and started stroking himself. His head was spinning, but he placed his confusion aside for the moment. For a moment, he thought maybe Steve was finally getting it on with Sharon Carter, but the feelings that poured over the bond made it clear that Steve was obviously alone, aroused, and _desperate_. And for whatever reason, Tony wanted nothing more than to provide him some comfort.

The specifics of the bond didn’t matter at that moment. So much about this still terrified him; shook his foundation so hard, he doubted he’d ever get the pieces back together. The feelings in his head were frightening, but right now, he couldn’t even contemplate shoving Steve out of his head.

That knowledge startled him.

Tony murmured Steve’s name and began stroking himself in earnest. He felt Steve’s arousal spike over the bond, and then, a new and strong wave of shame flooded the bond and that was—

“Fuck. Not again. This is ridiculous,” Tony gasped in annoyance. “JARVIS, call Steve on the secured line.”

There was no answer—JARVIS adamantly refrained from talking to him while he jerked off, the prude—but the next second, he heard the free-line signal over the speakers.

There were no sounds coming from the other side. No sounds whatsoever.

“You need to drop the act, Steve. This is stupid. We’re stupid. God, I feel how hard you are,” Tony groaned while he fisted his erection. “If this is a team-thing now, we might as well share the love. I really don’t want to get conditioned into feeling bad every time I jack off.”

A rustle of clothing and a grunt. “What are you talking about?” Steve asked, then, trying way too hard to sound unaffected. Steve seemed to realize that, too, and sighed in resignation. Tony hadn’t even been sure that he would actually answer his call, and the intrusion of his husky voice was both a welcome distraction and a kick in the gut. “I don’t feel bad because I… do this. I feel bad because I know you have to… when I…” He groaned, and there was a wave of self-annoyance hitting the bond. “I know this affects you against your will. That’s why I feel bad about it.”

Tony huffed a laugh at that. “Nice word choice. I’m _affected_ alright, Captain Diplomacy.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, and Tony realized he tried to calm himself down, tried to will himself into stopping and—

“No, _don’t_. Please. I’m so close. And it’s not exactly a bad thing… most of the time. I’m alone, and willing, so if you’re game, I—”

“Didn’t you say this is a joke?” Steve asked quietly, and then there were gentle, easy sounds coming from the speakers. The sounds of skin on skin, and soft, barely restrained gasps.

_Christ_. He’d never thought he’d find the sounds of another man jerking off erotic, but there you go.

“Oh, it is,” Tony said, and resumed his own movements on his cock. “But it’s our joke, isn’t it? I have no fucking idea who thought this mess up, but I feel you. All. The. Time. And I feel how close you are right now. You’re close, Steve, right?”

Steve moaned loudly, and was obviously surprised at himself for doing so. “I’m sorry. I tried to hold off, I didn’t…”

“You tried to _hold_ _off_?” Tony asked with a breathy laugh. “Right. You stopped doing this, huh? Didn’t touch yourself for so long. You were so good, Steve. And you must be so _desperate_ for it…”

“Christ,” Steve gasped, and Tony felt him rub his shaft harder. “What are we doing here?”

That was a great question. One he would try to find an answer to later.

“Right now, I’m spreading pre-come on my cock. What are you doing?”

Steve groaned. Loudly. “Tony.”

Tony grinned, stroking himself in a hard grip. “I think Tony would notice that.”

A pause. “He would,” Steve shot back, and Tony pursed his lips and shivered. There was nothing in Steve’s voice that suggested he didn’t mean it.

Tony bit his lip and thrust himself shamelessly against his hand. “Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.”

“I’m…” Steve started, groaning again. “I’m Captain America. You know what they say… if I break a promise, somewhere, a little kitten dies.”

Loud laughter bubbled off Tony’s lips. “Can’t have that.” A long moan whistled through his teeth, as he felt Steve shudder with him when his thumb tenderly rubbed his cock’s sensitive head.

“God, this feels good,” Steve said in a low, almost surprised tone, and _Jesus_ , his voice. The guy sure had a sexy voice. Deep, earnest, and almost a little overwhelmed, like every sensation pouring over the bond was something he’d never experienced before.

Tony was going to _wreck_ him.

At that, he had an idea. It had been a while, but it wasn’t like he’d never done it before. A few of the girls he’d been with over the years had offered to, well… _expand_ his horizon when it came to blowjobs, and… he’d enjoyed it. As weird as the feeling had been at first, he’d always ended up coming harder than he’d ever had before.

He stopped pumping his length, and instead tongued his forefinger. He pushed the wet digit down, over his balls, and circled his entrance, gasping while he slowly shoved the tip in.

Steve’s breathing hitched. “Tony, what are you—”

“You feel that?” Tony asked, although, of course, he knew Steve felt it. The bond was wide open. Neither of them was holding back. It didn’t matter that he had stopped touching his cock, because he was feeling _everything_ Steve did. Every stroke, every nerve ending. Tony shook his head pathetically, and choked back a sob as he tried to fight back orgasm.

“Yeah…” Steve said, a strangled gasp tearing off his lips. “I feel _you_.”

God. He’d thought it would be bizarre, to share this with Steve. It was not. Now that this was between them—now that he _knew_ how it felt to let Steve in—how he could ever have expected anything other than what he received now was entirely beyond him.

A long, pleasured sigh rumbled through his throat as his body opened up around the whole finger. “I thought about this,” he admitted with a low but steady voice. “Since our kiss, I kept thinking about how good it felt when someone fingered me like this…”

“You’re killing me,” Steve gasped, curving upward, rubbing himself desperately against his palm. “God, Tony…”

“I’m not even touching you.”

“You’re touching yourself. That’s… that’s basically the same thing.”

He whimpered, and let a second finger trail over the tender skin between his cock and his testicles. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Tony gasped, hips lifting, determinately slipping the second finger inside him. “Steve—”

“Tomorrow,” Steve gasped. “Tomorrow morning, I have to go on a mission, and after that, we’ll talk. We’ll… You won’t shut me out again. Not after this. We’re going to meet somewhere and talk about this.”

A pause. Tony’s lips quirked into a small grin. “And your agent?”

“We’re not—” Steve started. “We tried for a while, but we never—” He sighed, searching for the right words. “She’s Peggy’s niece and I couldn’t…”

Tony gasped and arched, his wet flesh molding around the finger, as Steve’s body rolled rhythmically with him. He tried to hold back the surge of relief that went through him, but it was useless. His mind was wide open, and there was no place to hide.

“I’m sorry for what I said about Peggy. I didn’t mean any of it. I just… I was being stupid and I wanted to make you feel bad.”

“I noticed. And… I feel it when you’re talking bullshit.”

Tony furrowed his brows. “That seems like a huge disadvantage.”

And then, the forefinger found his prostate and Tony couldn’t stop himself from sliding it all the way home. He heard Steve gasp, as he clenched around the digit. Steve was digging the fingers of one hand in his thigh, while the other fisted his cock, thrusting upward almost clumsily.

Tony whimpered, his hips crashing upward with a need he didn’t recognize. “Oh fuck, Steve…”

Steve groaned and drove his straining cock into his hand. “Never gonna get tired of that,” he said.

Tony blinked dazedly. “Tired of what?”

“Hearing you moan for me.”

Tony tossed his head back in a silent cry. “Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t moan for you. I moan for the finger in my ass.”

Soft chuckles met every needy thrust of his hips. “Next time, you’re gonna moan for _my_ finger in your ass.”

Tony gulped and curved upward again. “Oh, we’ll see about that.”

He held his breath while Steve began pumping his cock again. God, his ass was on fire and his eyes were swimming with tears; it was, perhaps, the most bizarre sensation he’d ever experienced.

“Fuck yourself, Tony,” Steve gasped and the speed at which he adhered to his request should have been embarrassing, but God, he didn’t care. He was open and wet, and ached to be touched.

And when he felt Steve suddenly pump his cock with inhuman speed, every last wall around his mind tumbled down.

Tony sobbed in ecstasy, arching his ass against his finger. “More,” he begged, his body teetering dangerously close to the most volatile orgasm he’d ever known. “Oh God, more.”

The next thing he knew, he felt Steve palming his balls, and gripping his cock so tight it was on the verge of painful. And with his finger thrusting rhythmically in and out of his asshole, with Steve’s fingers massaging the head of his cock, his body trembled hard and exploded with pleasure. He couldn’t even tell who’d come first, the only thing he knew was that shards of bliss singed his flesh as Steve’s name tore from his lips in a scream. Colors burst behind a fog of black, and jolts of ecstasy tore through his body. At long last, he felt something close to completion.

And that was when it hit him. Right then. At the peak of his orgasm, that was when it hit him.

It would be so easy to fall for Steve. So incredibly easy.

And when the haze settled and he opened his eyes to an empty room, the thought remained. It was a small moment of satisfaction compared to what he now knew he wanted. Wanted desperately. And it left him cold and alone on his empty couch. And yet, up until now, he was certain he’d never been a part of anything so powerful.

He heard Steve breathing erratically over the speakers. “Next time,” he started. “I’m gonna be there with you. Afterwards. I promise.”

Tony swallowed, unable to hold back the surge of embarrassment at the fact that Steve knew. Knew how vulnerable he was. “I’d like that,” he whispered, painfully honest. “Call me when you’re back?”

A pause. “I will. And then we’ll talk.”

Tony smiled softly, then tentatively brushed a finger against his lips, as if to kiss it. “And then we’ll talk.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Not even twelve hours later, the bond broke.

Just like that.

It had first attacked his gut, and nearly made him want to heave. Tony didn’t know how, or why, but one moment, he’d barely been awake and had let Steve’s soothing on-mission-concentration wash over him, and the next second, there was a sharp pain and Steve was gone. For the first time since New York, he was completely alone in his head.

He’d never thought that feeling would terrify him.

Something had happened on the mission, Tony was sure of that. Steve had been hurt, or gone missing, or—

Only it wasn’t that. This was different.

He knew how it felt when Steve’s mind was shut down. Even when he slept, there was still a slight buzzing at the edge of his consciousness, a tingling of presence—and now it was gone.

Steve was _gone_.


	3. Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you all so much for the comments <3

As it turned out, Steve was back in DC.

According to his mission report, he hadn’t been missing at all. He hadn’t even been hurt. There was no indication that anything had gone wrong—in fact, SHIELD had tagged the mission with a top rating, which probably could be translated into: ‘Everything went exactly the way we expected it to’.

Two days after the bond between him and Steve had broken, Tony couldn’t take it anymore and hijacked SHIELD’s systems. He sat down and watched the security feed—watched, disbelieving, as Steve’s Quinjet landed on the Triskelion, watched Steve walking out on the landing pat… and watched how he cautiously pulled a waiting Sharon Carter in his arms and… kissed her.

The pain in Tony’s gut was endless—and he grew consistently more agitated with each passing second.  He hadn’t known it would hurt like that. It was almost like a stabbing sensation, and it hurt to breathe. There was no recovery from this. It truly was over. Whatever had led to the bond breaking, it obviously had nothing to do with Steve’s well-being. Maybe it was about Tony. Maybe all those months of fighting against their soulbond had ultimately torn it apart.

Or maybe he just hadn’t been good enough for a permanent bond to begin with.

All he knew with certainty was that… whatever their relationship had been heading toward was over now. The little glances. The casual smiles. The way Steve had sometimes looked at him, softness lining his golden eyes and warmth burning his lips. And now that it was gone, a surge of hurt and loneliness filled him whole.

He didn’t remember turning off the security feed, nor did he remember walking back to the elevator, or how he’d made it to the penthouse. He didn’t remember his first glass of scotch, but knew it hadn’t been his last. Noise fell into a dull buzzing. He just lay down on the bed, curled on the mattress with his eyes fixed on the New York skyline, wondering how the hell he’d ended up here.

He didn’t resurface for three days, and every hour was spent waiting until sleep or too much booze would carry him away. Though truly, that didn’t help much either. There wasn’t enough alcohol to drown out the harsh light of reality. Steve didn’t call once. There were no messages on the Avengers communicator. There was nothing. The penthouse was silent, and not much else.

In his mind, he kept replaying the conversation they’d shared on the phone that night, and tried to figure out where exactly he’d gone wrong. Every night, he came up empty and the ache in his mind only grew worse.

A void ate away at his insides. There was nowhere to turn to. And while he would have loved to deny it, the truth was simple and hard to ignore: Now that he had the choice, he wanted Steve. And Steve didn’t want him back.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next time the Avengers were officially called in again, it was because another fucking group of those damn goblins terrorized Upper Manhattan. SHIELD still hadn’t come up with a name for the aliens, and no one had managed to find out anything about their plan—assuming those stupid-ass things even had one.

Tony calculated his options, considered simply not going, so he wouldn’t have to face Steve. Fury could do exactly nothing to make him go; it was all up to him, but in the end, he didn’t have much of a choice. Barton and Romanov had yet to return from their latest mission, and between Steve, Bruce and him, they were all that New York had left.

Aside from that, staying away from Steve simply wasn’t in his system anymore. He was allowed to hope, wasn’t he? Allowed to entertain the possibility that… _maybe_ … Steve still wanted him, despite the broken bond, despite Sharon Carter, even if it made the ultimate rejection unbearable in the end. He was allowed to hope that, if he’d made Steve understand that… he wanted to try this, so much, so _damn_ much, he wouldn’t turn away from him even now.

And God, it was stupid. He knew, even before he arrived at SHIELD, that he was running into an unsheathed knife.

Tony released a deep breath, steeling himself as he strolled into the Commando area. Fury and Hill already waited for him. As expected, when he looked up at Steve, who lingered in the corner of the room next to Sharon Carter, he was met with sympathetic but very much blue eyes. Their gazes met, and it felt as though they had been parted for years.

There it was. The last evidence. The gold was gone. However possible, the bond was gone, as well. There was no link whatsoever between them, no universal fate that bound them together. Only months ago, this was everything he’d wanted. Freedom. Choice. He didn’t have to stay with Steve. He wasn’t forced into a relationship with him.

Tony hadn’t known what to expect. He supposed, in some foolish fashion, that he’d thought Steve would be just as shocked as he was. He wasn’t. He looked sad somehow, understanding, but otherwise his blue eyes were very calm.

“The guest of honor’s arrived,” Fury said with a wave in his direction. “Glad you could make it. Let’s start.”

Only half an hour and exactly zero conversation with Steve later, they were in the middle of their mission. Basically, it was the same routine as it had been in the last months: They were prepared for an army, and were met with only a handful of enemies, all too ready to surrender. And when the battle was over, they hadn’t accomplished anything.

Again.

At the end of it all, he was emotionally exhausted; caught between hating Steve and feeling sorry for himself, piled on top of totally hating Sharon fucking Carter.

He didn’t pay attention to the debriefing. He didn’t pay attention to anything, really. He couldn’t do this. At last, he had to admit that it would take a lot of time to replace the hole the bond had left, and he couldn’t do it with Steve right in front of him. He could pretend that he wasn’t breaking inside, for now, but it wouldn’t be anything but an act.

Maybe it was the touch on his hand or the sound of his name that jarred him back to the present. Perhaps it was the combination of both. The dual jolts of remembrance that he was not alone, and then—as he looked up—that it was _not_ his soulmate that sat next to him. Not anymore. Steve and him were alone in the darkened conference room. The others had already left.

Steve was watching him carefully, his eyes weighed with compassion. “You all right?” he asked quietly.

Tony licked his lips self-consciously and settled back. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

Steve sighed, looking kind of pained. “Tony…”

“What happened with ‘we’ll talk’? What _happened_?”

Steve frowned, but his gaze remained trained on Tony with unmoving precision. “Nothing happened.”

“Nothing you want to share with me, you mean,” Tony clarified. His gaze traveled briefly to Steve’s hand, which was wound into a tight fist. “Good thing you don’t have to anymore, huh?”

Steve glanced to him with a confused frown, eyes narrowing. “Look, I really didn’t want to—”

“—what, hurt me? First of all, you couldn’t. Second of all, bullshit. You told me we’d be talking about this, and you never even fucking called.” He tried not to sound too embittered, but he knew his efforts were wasted. He _was_ bitter. He was so fucking bitter.

A darker scowl befouled Steve’s features at that. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I never promised you anything. I don’t know what happened, but it did, alright? It’s gone.”

Steve moved without waiting for a reply, and Tony had trouble grabbing for his hand. “I’m here for you. It doesn’t matter if we’re not…” He swallowed. “…bonded anymore. I’m still here. If something happened. If something went wrong on the mission that forced you to—”

“No one _forced_ me to do anything,” Steve said heavily. He started pacing, a trait that somehow looked odd on him. “I…” And then he trailed off completely, gaze distancing with thoughtful resolution. He stood stock-still for a moment, and when he came back to himself, his blue eyes were full with compassion, again. “I’m fine, Tony. Really. It’s not your job to worry about me.”

Tony bit back a flinch and released a long, tempered sigh. “I lost you,” he whispered hoarsely.

Steve shook his head, and lowered his voice. “We both know you never wanted to have me to begin with.”

Tony forced a nod, tagged with a strained smile. “Look, I… I know I never really gave you the impression that I wanted this, but… most of the time, I felt like my head was about to explode, Steve. The bond was so vivid. I felt everything you felt and I…” He bit back a sob, refusing to show how weak we was. “I’m sorry I fucked this up, I understand you’re happy to get rid of me.”

A flash of confusion streaked across Steve’s features, but was gone the next instant. He shrugged one shoulder and offered a small, almost apologetic smile. “You have nothing to be sorry about, okay? This isn’t your fault.” He paused and looked at Tony intensely. “It gave us a choice.”

“A choice,” he echoed.

“Yes. A choice to be with whoever you want to be. Wasn’t that what you wanted?”

Tony swallowed hard and nodded, doing his level best to ignore the cold encompassing his heart. He supposed getting what one asked for was always bittersweet.

“If you like, you can even go back to Pepper now—”

“But I felt it, Steve. You don’t understand. I _felt_ the bond break,” Tony said, louder now, as he stared at Steve. It was important to maintain a form of eye contact, even if it wasn’t wanted. He willed Steve’s eyes to shine golden again. “And I don’t know why! It just happened, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I feel helpless, and I’m _never_ helpless.” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “It knew that… that we could have been good together and now—”

“I am sorry you’re hurt, Tony,” Steve repeated and crouched down. A small, empathetic smile rose to his lips. “I know you just started to come around to the idea of, well…wanting men like that, and I’m flattered you chose me for coming out, I really do. But… I love Sharon. It took me a while to get there, but I’m there now.”

Steve’s words effectively killed whatever else Tony might have said in protest. He shivered, his nerve failing as his eyes hit the ground. He looked at Steve for a long, reflective moment. He’d really been ready to try this, hadn’t he? Looking at Steve he felt… both a sense of calm appreciation as well as terribly out of place. Slowly, he nodded his reluctant agreement. There was nothing to be done. “I understand,” he said, his voice barely audible even to him. Then, with a sigh of concession, he took the hand Steve offered him and stood up.

He gazed in the hallway behind Steve and saw Sharon waiting there for him. “Look, I’m not gonna harass you or something, but if you want to talk about… what happened between us, before—”

“I’ll call you,” Steve said with another tight smile and left the room. Tony followed his form with his eyes, and his gaze landed on Sharon Carter. Her face reflected a certain measure of understanding and Tony refused to call it pity. She regarded him carefully, before Steve pulled her around the next corner.

Another long moment passed. He didn’t know what had just happened, and he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer. His tired mind was exhausting itself into another endless race. Only days ago, Steve had—by all means—shared this new and frighteningly different feelings with him, and now… Now that the bond was gone, Steve didn’t want him anymore.

Tony turned around to face the empty room. There it was. It was over. Everything was out. Steve wasn’t disgusted or disappointed with him—they were still friends—he simply didn’t want him, and come to think of it, he had every right not to.

It was arrogant to believe that he’d been the only one who’d hated the idea of being forced into this. The bond had taken Steve’s choice, too, and now that he had it back—he’d made it. And Tony had to accept that.

It was growing increasingly more difficult to ignore the pang in his chest, but at least, the uncertainty was gone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

To say the next days hadn’t been easy would be the mother of all understatements. He existed in negative space. His nights were spent tormented with thoughts of Steve, and his days with trying to find a meaning behind all this. Sometimes, there was an echo in his mind, like a phantom pain. For a few stolen moments, it almost felt like Steve was still there, but in a blink, it was gone again. It wasn’t the soothing presence of Steve’s mind he’d been used to, it was harsh and anguished and showed exactly how broken Tony truly was. The burn only grew worse each time. Something had his insides twisted and for the strangest second, he began to panic because he could hardly breathe.

He had absolutely no idea how his life had become so thoroughly fucked up in such a short amount of time. A few days ago, things had been… well, not exactly great, but better than they were presently. He had finally allowed himself to drown in Steve’s warmth by simply letting his mind in. It had been a frighteningly comfortable pattern. Outside of missions, Steve had joked with him, teased him, warmed him with his laughter, and even managed to teach him a few things about life without seeming to realize it.

And somewhere along the way, Tony had lost himself to a world of Steve’s goodness. He had known how it felt to have his affection, and learned how bright Steve’s mind truly was, how unexpectedly intelligent. It seemed his life had become a walking contradiction, because now that the bond was gone, Tony didn’t know how to let go.

He’d never thought he could feel like this. His body shouldn’t still flood with warmth when he thought of Steve. He had never imagined wanting to touch a man like a lover, but with Steve… He lived in his every thought now, and Tony was so lost in them that he forgot everything else around him. It wasn’t right that a soulbond should just break like that. There was a space in his mind that didn’t get filled anymore. He wanted Steve, and he’d ruined it.

It was Rhodey who dragged him out of the workshop. Of course it’d be Rhodey. By the end of it, Tony was completely wasted and he barely noticed when he was first heaved into a shower, and then into bed.

“I hate him,” he mumbled, as Rhodey tucked him in.

Rhodey sighed in exasperation. “Sure you do, man. That’s what all this is about. Because you hate the guy.”

A stark, desperate laugh crackled through Tony’s lips. “I do…” So much. _I hate him so much._ “And _this_. God, I fucking hate this,” he said and cringed at the idea of Steve wrapped away in that woman’s arms—a woman he obviously loved—and it made him feel violently ill.

A short chuckle fell off Rhodey’s lips, and he gave him an inquisitive look in turn. “Oh man,” he said with a shake of his head. “Are you ever in for it.”

“’m not.”

“Yes, Tony, you are.”

“I—”

“You’re not fooling anyone,” Rhodey told him. He laid a hand on Tony’s forehead, obviously checking his temperature before he caressed his skin for a second. “You’re falling for the guy, and—I know it’s confusing, man, but… you’re my best friend, and if you think for a second that I care about shit like that, you’re off your nuts.”

Tony sank back into the bed and cast a long-suffering gaze to the ceiling. “I think I like him.”

Rhodey huffed a breath. “No shit.”

“ _Like_ -like him,” Tony clarified.

Rhodey just shrugged as though the revelation was of no consequence. “As long as I won’t ever get a live-show, I’m cool with it.”

Tony scowled at that. Rationally, he knew that, at some point, the line he’d drawn had faded and settled at the point of no return, but… Rhodey didn’t need to be so blunt about it.

He was so confused. Confused enough for several lifetimes, and he was determined not to think of it any longer. What did it all matter now? Steve didn’t want him, and he had to let go, and never give their broken bond a second thought.

It was a nice idea, as far as pipe dreams went.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The air was sharp and cold against his skin. The first thought that came to Tony’s mind was that the damn cleaning crew had been playing with the thermostat again. He should probably complain to Pepper, but then again… Pepper liked the cleaning crew— _and_ the colder temperatures. Unsurprisingly, she got everything her way, even if that everything included temperate conditions that made living in Antarctica seem like a piece of cake.

It wasn’t for a few more minutes before he noticed the pain stretching over his body, the awkward soreness of his shoulders, and something that strangely felt like a reopened, albeit mostly healed wound on his left leg. He wasn’t just cold—the air was painfully nipping at his skin and commanding his body.

This couldn’t be normal. Even if the bond had broken, pain like this couldn’t possibly exist just because Steve had turned him down. The pain was growing worse, though, and finally jolted him out of his dream completely. It first attacked his gut, but it was spreading. He felt it in his fingertips. Felt it saturating into every inch his skin. Felt it on his hands, in his throat—felt it everywhere there was to feel.

It was then that he realized all these feelings weren’t his.

They were Steve’s.

Tony moaned and peeled his eyes open. Steve was propped against something hard. A wall, most likely. He also guessed that the soreness in his arms was probably due to them being pulled behind his head, wrists bound with a manacle harness that itched against the skin. His feet seemed to be tied in a similar fashion.

A strangled sob commanded Tony’s voice as he felt Steve jerk at a sudden hard grip on his arm. There was fury surging through the bond—fury and desperation, and fear. Even with Steve’s enhances physique, Tony felt how his muscles were worn and rejuvenating. Any attempt to free himself was useless, and he felt a surge of defeat dribble through the bond.

Then there was a stabbing sensation at his arm, and a second later, the connection was gone.

Tony slammed a hand on the headboard of the bed, and kept his fist coiled in a steadfast grip for long seconds. Long trembles rumbled through his body, every inch of willpower tingling on its last nerve. He was fighting the urge to just yank out the damn board and consign the entire thing to the wall.

Instead, he took his tablet in a hand and ran another tracker through SHIELD’s files and—no. Steve still wasn’t reported missing. Steve was supposed to be in Washington, at home.

And sure enough, as he asked JARVIS to hack into SHIELD’s systems to get a tap on one of the many cameras they’d positioned into Steve’s apartment, only seconds later, he saw him sleeping peacefully in his bed. Sharon Carter was curled in his arms.

Steve was fine, but he wasn’t fine, and that could only mean…

That was the moment that a blast of trepidation seized Tony, and he realized belatedly what was happening. It had hit him from nowhere—a burst of knowledge that drove straight for the heart. Someone had kidnapped Steve—and chained him in a manner that he obviously could not break out of. They had drugged him, _hurt_ him, and—

And no one knew he was missing.

Because no one had even noticed he was gone.

Unwittingly, his mind flashed back to the sympathetic look on Steve’s face—back to his azure blue eyes. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it, or how he could’ve been so stupid.

How could he possibly not have realized what was going on? The answer was as simple as it was awful. He’d been too busy soaking in self-pity and drinking himself into a stupor that he simply hadn’t given his situation a second thought.

Any other person would have waited a few minutes to let this sink in. Tony had no such reservation. Screw all this. He’d waited long enough to hear Steve’s thoughts again.

Tony relaxed his grip on the headboard, and fought to his feet. “JARVIS, call Bruce.”

A few seconds later, Bruce’s voice filled the air. “What? Tony?”

“We were infiltrated,” he said, while he grabbed for his jeans. “I’ll meet you in the lab in five. We have a machine to build. Bring the alien tech and…” A thought crossed his mind. “Put on the stretch pants.”

This had gone far enough. It was time for action. Tony grabbed his phone and started to write a message to Fury and Romanov. He hesitated, though, and eventually deleted the words again. There was no way to tell how deep this infiltration went. No way to say whom he could trust right now. And he wouldn’t risk messing this up.

He changed clothes, told JARVIS to prepare a suit just in case, and then made his way to the workshop. He stopped when he saw Bruce shuffling sleepily through the room. He was talking quietly with JARVIS, murmuring words while he picked up a stack of papers from Tony’s workspace.

Tony sighed, scratching his head. Well, there was only one way to be sure.

“JARVIS,” Tony called quietly. “Prepare everything for a Hulk-out, would you?”

There was a moment of hesitation, before JARVIS spoke up again. “Hulk-Room 3 is available, sir. Should I queue up another episode of Dora?”

“Yeah, sure, why the hell not,” Tony said, popping his knuckles, as he walked into the room. He had an impostor to uncover, there was no time for sensitivity. And if anything had happened to the real Steve, the alien would beg for death before Tony gave it to him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When he and Bruce—who was still somewhat angry but mostly reasonable—arrived at the Helicarrier a few hours later, Tony’s first instinct was to go straight to the top level, and force them all to do a scan test on the device they’d built.

It only took two seconds to rectify that plan and step back a little, watching the scene in front of him. The light was on and while the lower levels of the Commando area were empty, the Avengers plus Fury and Hill were all there, and all in full uniform gear. Tony waited next to the doorway, watching as Fury walked back and forth.

Then, his eyes landed on not-Steve. Tony held up a hand, shielding his face and shaking his head, as if to clear it. He couldn’t bring himself to look down at the handcuffed and gagged man sitting at the corner of the room. God, he looked exactly like him, Captain America-scowl included. Normally, Tony didn’t have any problems holding it together in times like these, but if he laid eyes on the Steve’s face right now, he might just lose it. He couldn’t stand looking at him, looking at the bruises that marked his skin. He just couldn’t.

“So your foes—they are medium of size and green.” Thor’s deep baritone voice suddenly echoed through the hall and—well, that really was a surprise. He had been sure that they’d never see the God of Thunder ever again.

Clint sighed and rested both hands on the table. “They have this weird, sorta fringy purple stuff on their arms. Blue collar. Look a lot like Gollum, only bigger.”

Thor nodded, like he’d actually understood that reference—which he didn’t—and released a deep breath. “We know all we must. There are a few races that seem likely, but they all originate from the same species—the _Deviants_. Anthony is right with his assessment: Our elders call them ‘the changing people’. They can take up any form they had contact with.” He glanced over at Fury, who was now stationed at his customary location behind the consoles. “I will give you the knowledge the Asgardians have about their abilities in magic, and weaponry.”

In the midst of it all, Tony and Bruce walked up the stairs unnoticed. Bruce held the little cube in his hands upwards and it only took two point five seconds until all five people in front of him were cleared with a green light. There was only one person blinking red—Steve.

When Tony’s eyes landed on Barton and Romanov, he nearly didn’t recognize them. They had both a face so foregone, it was hard to believe they were the same people he’d met a few months ago. While they weren’t exactly friends, give or take a haphazard alliance in the past, Tony knew them both well enough to know that the look on their faces detailed more agony than any expression he had ever seen them wear before.

“Missed me?” he asked eventually, and effectively sliced through the layers of voices. His gaze focused on Fury and Hill, who were looking at him with near gratefulness, which was—yeah, a bit disturbing.

Romanov and Barton stood up in a freakishly fast movement and stalked over to them. While Barton grabbed for Bruce’s jacket, Romanov came at him. “What’s the first thing you ever said to me?” she asked with a no-bullshit expression.

Tony frowned. “You expect me to remember that?”

She grabbed for his collar and stared him down. “I’m not gonna ask again.”

“I asked for your name,” Tony said slowly.

“And after that?”

He cast her a sly smirk. “I asked you to step into the boxing ring with Happy so I could ogle you better—and the photos of your lingerie shoot. You were very naked.”

She considered him for a beat, then she rolled her eyes and stepped back. “It’s him.”

“Aw, you know me so well, and I hate to disappoint, but—this actually doesn’t prove anything. They don’t just copy the looks, they imitate our memories, our behavior. They know everything we know.”

Romanov’s eyes narrowed and she obviously tried to figure out if she had to kill him now. Hastily, Tony held up the cube and scanned himself, showing her the clearance signal. “We built a device that can detect them. It’s a prototype and the range is a work-in-process, but green’s good, red’s bad, and all that. Pretty self-explanatory, if you ask me.”

“Could be fake,” Barton offered with a grim look.

Tony groaned. “It’s not a _fake_ , Jesus, they can’t exactly copy genius, bird brain. Besides, Bruce here has a pretty foolproof way to show that he’s no alien, right, Big Green?”

At that, Bruce’s features turned into a stunningly cruel mask, his eyes shimmering green for a few seconds.

Romanov took a step back, but eventually—she nodded briskly and sat back down at the table.

“We weren’t sure you would come,” Hill told Tony with a neutral stare, while they stepped closer.

Tony smiled thinly, straightening his collar. “And I’m sure I know what your opinion on that was.”

Hill’s expression remained serene. No answer was an answer, too.

“Where have you two been anyway?” Tony asked in the direction of Barton and Romanov, giving them a pointed look-over. “You look like total shit.”

Barton sighed, but nodded eventually. There was frustration written all over his drawn face. “There were too many of them. We tried to get the rest of our team out, but… halfway out of it, we realized they’d turned against us.”

Tony frowned. “But how—”

“We hadn’t realized they had already been replaced,” Clint explained.

“We’d lost our communicators,” Natasha said. “Took us two weeks to get out of there and another to the next town.”

“As heartwarming as this little reacquaintance scene is,” Fury said, command in his voice alerting everyone to the task at hand. “We have an alien army to uncover.”

“How long did you know?” Hill asked Tony.

“A few hours.”

“And you know where Captain Rogers is?”

Tony shook his head. He felt the heat of blue eyes burning into his back, and shuddered hard. He couldn’t help himself. For a second, his eyes drifted to the impostors’ face. The defeat in Steve’s blue eyes was crushing. He’d never seen him so tired. So lost. So torn. And it took everything in him to remind himself that it was all an act and simply turn away again. “Not yet,” he admitted.

Fury scowled at him. “But you told me—”

“My brain knows. We just have to use that knowledge and find him.”

Silence.

“ _What?_ ” Fury asked.

Tony shook his head and nodded in the direction of Steve’s impostor. “What happens with him? Maybe we can use him to—”

“He claims that he doesn’t know where they took Steve,” Romanov supplied. “Interrogation is an option but it might take a while.” With the way she phrased her words there was no doubt that by the end of it, the alien was either talking, or dead.

Bruce stepped forward and laid his Stark tablet on the table, pulling at the upper half of the screen to produce a holographic expansion. “How long has this been going on?” he asked. “How many people have they replaced?”

Hill shook her head. “We don’t know yet. The first sightings have been six months ago. They always came in a group of about two hundred and sought out places with a high transit frequency. If they were successfully switching places with people all this time, then…”

“A lot,” Tony finished, and rubbed his temple.

Thor stepped up to them with heavy steps. “Whenever they encounter a new race, they seek to bring war within the communities. They select whoever they deem worthy enough and replace them with their own kind. They consume memories… behavior… body language. And they transform themselves to resemble their opponents.”

Tony glanced at Bruce. “I have to find Steve. You can work on expanding the signal and find those bastards. With a little luck, I’ll be back before the party’s over.” He pointed down on the tablet. The others all leaned forward and Tony could make out the exact second when they all understood.

“That’s a brainwave measurement for bondpartners,” Fury said with a blank expression.

Tony nodded with an eye roll. He refused to back down now. “Brilliant deduction, my dear Watson—yes, it’s a fucking PI scanner. As it happens, Rogers was my…” He stopped, realizing suddenly what all this meant. “… _is_ my bondpartner. I know it’s hilarious that it’s me of all people, but… I’d really prefer to get him back now.”

While Fury, Hill and Barton had completely stopped in their tracks, there was an obvious lack of surprise on Romanov’s face as she considered him. “We cannot locate him via the PI.”

Bruce cleared his throat. “Actually, we can. We’ll use the same spectrometers we did for the Tesseract, and calibrate them to Tony’s brainwaves. The tracking algorithm should be able to catch something, assuming Steve is conscious.”

Hill leaned forward on the table. “By now they could have taken him anywhere.”

Fury grabbed his coat and motioned for them to follow. “We’ll start at his last confirmed location and go from there.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Their plan, however sophisticated in theory, remained hopelessly rudimentary in practice. They travelled slowly, staying in an area for as long as it took Steve to regain a glimmer of consciousness. They had to wait for a signal on the map, and if it didn’t show, they moved to the next location.

In the end, it took them four damn days of travelling around in the Quinjet, before they had a match. After that, things happened so quickly, it was all just a blur. The aliens who’d taken Steve— _Skrulls_ , as Thor had called them—were shapeshifters, but once you realized that, they were taken out easily enough. The next thing Tony knew, he was standing in the doorway that led him to Steve, every nerve in his being alight with verve. His throat scratched with the sudden innate need to breathe.

Or burst into tears.

Steve was just hanging there. Hanging there and had been for days. There was an odd angle in the position of his arms, from where they were attached to the chains in the ceiling. His feet were made the same—shackled and held by chains that protruded from the floor. He was completely barren of any stitch of clothing, and his once-perfect skin was burdened with more burnings of numerous lashings than Tony had ever seen. There were layers of caked blood and grime. His eyes were mostly swollen shut and his beautiful face was marred with bruises and cuts. He was still bleeding, and Tony really didn’t want to look too closely. He didn’t want to see something fatal—something that would take his hope away.

“Fuck,” Barton gasped next to him.

“They will all die for this,” Romanov said in a deadly voice that allowed no opposition.

Steve looked dead. And if he had not opened one of his eyes then, and looked at Tony with dazed recognition, he would have thought it so. From what he could see, his were still shining golden for him. After all those months of ignoring Steve, his eyes still wanted him.

He couldn’t help himself. Tony covered the space between them before another beat could pass. The fact that he hadn’t been there to stop this knifed at his gut.

Steve’s eyes were swollen, his gaze unfocused and bleary. “Don’t pretend to be him,” he murmured in a low, exhausted tone. “No more games.”

The request took him aback, and Tony pulled away to study Steve before realizing what he meant. Before realizing what he was referring to.

“It’s really me.” He laid a hand over Steve’s bruised chest, reveling in the steady thump of his heartbeat against his touch. “Can’t you feel me?”

Steve nodded, though incredulity shone through his swollen eyes. He didn’t believe him.

“Steve,” Tony whispered, tapping a finger against Steve’s temple to gain his attention. “They can’t mimic soulbonds. The alien… the… other me, tell me, what color did his eyes have?”

Steve blinked several times before he looked up and finally saw him. Really saw him. Saw him and understood. “Brown,” he breathed inarticulately, and then there was a fierce surge of hope tickling over the bond.

“Yes, brown,” he replied softly, and laid a hand on Steve’s cheek as gently as he could. “We’re here to get you out.”

A little smile rose to Steve’s lips at that, and he glanced behind Tony to where he knew the others waited. “Took you long enough.”

Tony snorted and fisted the metal bars holding Steve up. “Come on. We’re going for a walk.”

“Tony—”

“Right. You called my bluff. I’ll carry you. Wrap you up, and get you the hell out of here. Come on. This might sting a little.”

He shot a pointed repulsor-blast at the metal, far enough away so it couldn’t reach Steve’s wrists and had him free in a second.

“How long have I been here?” Steve asked, and glanced at Romanov as she put a blanket around his naked body.

“Two weeks,” she said softly.

Steve blinked at her, and looked back at Tony. “Seemed longer.”

Tony nodded, smiling at him gently. “Seemed longer to me, too. Things were far too quiet in my head.”

Steve huffed, leaning up on him, as they started to walk. “Things are never quiet in your head.”

Tony snorted. No sense in arguing that. “Come on, let’s get you home, all right?”

Steve smiled at him, a tiny, flimsy thing, and it was everything. “All right.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as Steve was put on the stretcher, he fell asleep. Tony figured it was partly exhaustion, and partly the aftershocks of the drug-induced coma the aliens had put him in for the past weeks. They brought him to the Triskelion’s medical facility and the day that followed already did wonders on the scars that marred his beautiful face. He had to be one of the most irritatingly gorgeous men, because even with the welts and cuts, he was still a sight to be seen.

Tony found himself smiling at Steve’s sleeping face. He didn’t know how long he sat there. Time had no meaning. He sat in undisturbed silence, watching Steve for all his stillness, contemplating the hours ahead. God, he had come so close to losing this. So fucking close.

Sometime past midnight, the door creaked open and the scent of flowers hit the air. It jarred Tony out of the perpetual reverie he had been in and he found himself more than grateful for the distraction. Slowly, he turned to the door and was greeted by Pepper’s warm smile. She met his eyes, and when he didn’t say anything, she took the lead. She sat down on the bed, mindful not to touch Steve’s legs.

Tony regarded her for a moment before turning his attention to her hand gripping his. It seemed forever had passed since he had last touch her. “You didn’t have to come,” he said quietly.

She shrugged a shoulder. “I thought you could use a friend.”

He smiled at her, relief chasing away worry. “Is that what we are now?”

Pepper’s mouth quirked upwards. “Oh, Tony. Don’t even.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Yes, you are. You’re overthinking it.”

His eyes widened comically at the implication, and he was just about to open his mouth, when Pepper brought her hands up in lieu of innocence. “Just stating a fact. I was around for 1998, you know? I think I’m skilled enough to pinpoint the exact signs of your guilt-tripping technique.”

He snickered softly and shook his head. “That was below the belt, Miss Potts.”

“Of course. I’m your ex. It’s my God given right and duty to aim below the belt, from now on. Better get used to it.”

The smile on Tony’s face melted away to nothingness again, his eyes traveling to the still man on the bed. To the bruises on his face, the welts on his arms, the cuts on his chest. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what they had done to him if he still looked as broken as he did after a day of healing.

Pepper placed a warm hand on his knee and jarred him back to the present. “You did everything you could,” she told him softly.

Tony couldn’t help it; he started to laugh. “If by ‘everything’ you mean sitting in my workshop, wallowing in self-pity and drinking myself stupid, then yeah, sure, I did everything I could.”

“You couldn’t have possibly known it wasn’t him, Tony.”

He exhaled softly, shoulders dropping in defeat. “I’m his mate. If anyone could’ve known, _should’ve_ known, it was me.”

Pepper pursed her lips, rubbing his back softly. “You got him out in the end. And you’ll be there to help him deal with what happened. That’s all that you can do right now.”

His gaze once again fell upon the bed. “This is terrible.”

Pepper arched a brow, her hand resuming the patterns of comfort that she drew across his back. “What? Being afraid?” She smiled knowingly when he glanced to her with a scowl. Since when was he that simple to read? “It’s okay to be afraid. Even for Iron Man.”

“It’s not just about being afraid… it’s the not knowing that’s killing me. I don’t know if he—” He glanced up, shifting uncomfortably. “If he’ll still… want me. After this mess.”

There was a moment of silence. Her expression dubious for a long, lingering minute, and then she seemed to understand. “He wanted you before, didn’t he?”

He shook his head and felt heat rising to his cheeks. Talking to your ex girlfriend about your potential new lover was bound to be at least a little bit awkward. “I don’t really know. We haven’t exactly… made any declarations yet. And I was—” He sighed and pinched his nose. “Seriously, I was a giant ass to him. A great-A asshole. Told him repeatedly that I wouldn’t, well, change sides, you know, just because we were bonded and all. I told him that I could never want him.”

Pepper smiled wistfully. “But you do, don’t you?”

Tony swallowed. Well, fuck it. Out and proud and all that. “I… He’s just—Steve is just so good, you know? He’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. And he’s really funny, and can be such a little shit, you wouldn’t believe it. He is…” He sighed, shaking his head at himself, for once at a loss for words.

Pepper made a soft little sound, looking at him with wide eyes. “Oh, Tony.”

“It all doesn’t mean a thing if he doesn’t want me back.”

“By all means, if this is what it takes for Steve to stop caring about you, then, frankly, he doesn’t deserve you.” She blinked, then, and shook her head. “And honestly, he wouldn’t be your soulmate, if he couldn’t put up with a little of your bullshit.”

There was no malice in her voice, no cruel suggestion. And at that moment, he knew for the first time what it meant to have Pepper as a friend again. A real friend. She would stand by him, through the good and bad decisions, because now, she could simply accept him for who he was again.

“Well, this is positively mortifying,” Tony said, pressing a kiss to the back of Pepper’s hand. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’ll be here as long as you need me,” Pepper answered, patting him twice in support before she stood up. She leaned forward to kiss his forehead.

Tony nodded noncommittally.

She moved for the door. “The others are all outside if you need them.”

Right on cue, Thor’s voice bellowed across the hallway. He’d been hard to ignore for the past hours. Tony smiled to himself. It was oddly calming. “Kind of hard to forget with these people.”

He sensed her linger for a minute thereafter. “They’re better, for you, you know,” she said quietly. “He’s better.”

Tony swallowed, and nodded without looking back. “Yeah, I know.”

It was easy to detect when she left, though his mind was too detached from the present to make a definitive note about it. It was difficult to consider anything while Steve slept.

So he sat in silence. Satisfied with that for now. Watching Steve heal.

And waiting.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I kinda liked the brown,” a voice murmured, jolting Tony awake. His head jerked back, almost making him crash into the headboard.

Sometime during the night, he’d ended up on the bed next to Steve; and couldn’t fully explain why. Well, he could. Sure he could. He’d been entirely selfish. He’d wanted the opportunity to hold him once while he slept. Just once. Once before the world he had created in his head shattered. Before his nightmares became reality. Before he looked into Steve’s eyes and saw rejection bounce back at him.

Only there wasn’t an ounce of that in Steve’s eyes, now. He was squeezing Tony’s hand. Very, very gently. Cautiously. As though worried that any additional strength would break him.

As though it was Tony lying in that hospital bed, recovering.

“What?” Tony asked with a strangled voice.

“The brown,” Steve breathed. “Never really saw your real eye-color. I liked it.”

Every impulse wrought into his system drew to a standstill. God, simply seeing Steve look at him with golden eyes was enough to knock the air from his lungs. It was astounding—the clarity behind those eyes that had been all too recently empty. The confusion marred only with comprehension. This had been a bad idea. Being in the same bed with Steve while he was as vulnerable as he was right now, he felt like an intruder.

Tony blinked and forced himself to meet Steve’s gaze head-on. “Well, I think you gotta make do with the gold from here on out,” he said hoarsely, and traced a finger over Steve’s forehead. “Look at that,” he continued after a moment. “My man’s got two eyes, again.”

Slowly, Steve returned his smile. He was studying Tony with intensity that sent shivers across his skin as his insides trembled. His eyes were heavy with longing, his expression bathed in reverence. “I’m your man now?”

From the look on Steve’s face, he was serious. Very serious. This was the moment that would either make or break them and Tony felt himself nod, only partially registering how hard his heart was pounding. The fog around his head was beginning to part, all at once.

“If you’re okay with that,” he added, his eyes dropping with slow reluctance to Steve’s chest. There was still a somewhat more prominent bruise on his pectoral, and he reached to caress, and flinched, when Steve flinched. “Sorry,” he said, then sighed heavily. “And, well… sorry. For not coming for you sooner. I should’ve realized something was off with those aliens.”

Steve shook his head at him. “We all knew something wasn’t right,” he said. “And even if you’d realized they were shapeshifters, you could’ve never guessed that they are able to mimic personality traits, or memories. This wasn’t your fault.”

Tony shook his head. “I still knew. Knew you were different. I just… I have all these issues, you know. Tons of issues. And I thought… it was because of me. I thought you were fed up with me.”

Steve laid a hand on his cheek and brushed his thumb against his cheekbone. There was a certain weight in his golden eyes, a heaviness, and his voice was very steady when he spoke, “I’m not.”

It took Tony several awkward moments to even give Steve a little nod.

That was that.

“I’m sorry I was such an ass to you all the time.”

Steve glanced at him, and his mouth quirked a little. “And here I thought that was your default setting.”

Tony smirked at him. “Very funny, Rogers.”

They smiled at each other, until they remembered themselves and glanced away again. “I’m really, really stupid sometimes, you know?” Tony licked his lips and shook his head. “That probably won’t change, I’m just… an asshole, most of the time. But I’ll try, if you want me to, I’m willing to try this and—I’m sorry for everything.”

Steve’s head ducked. He shuddered another sigh, and God, there were tears stinging his eyes.

It was hard to say how they’d ended up here. Steve had probably imagined a thousand times and in thousand different ways how it would be to meet his soulmate. And now he was bound to Tony of all people. Too old, same gender, but his. Whether he wanted him or not. He was wholly his. He had been a fool to think he could have ever been anyone else’s.

The world had fallen down around them and Tony knew, deep in his heart, that whatever cause he’d dedicated his existence to until now was null and void. All his love for Pepper, however deep and genuine, amounted to nothing in comparison. He felt the fabric of Steve’s soul around him and it was everything. _Everything_.

“I can’t—” Steve said, shaking his head at himself, as he wiped his eyes. He didn’t look broken, but it was easy to see that it would take a while for him to be fine again. “I can’t really think straight right now. I need a few days. Bit of an emotional rollercoaster.”

“Of course.” Tony held up a hand and neared him. He could wait a little, no big deal. “You should get a little rest. I’ll be back tomorrow with the others, and then we’ll take you home, okay?”

“Home?” Steve asked, trying for a frown and failing miserably.

Tony grinned at him, shrugging. “A lot can change in a day, Sleeping Beauty. You wait and see.”

Steve only grunted something unintelligible and shifted until he lay comfortably on his back.

Tony neared again, boldly leaning down. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, then dipped his head and captured Steve’s lips in a kiss. A step past chaste, but not passionate. Not yet. Just enough. He was determined to leave Steve without doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know all that much about 616!Skrulls, so please forgive me if I got anything wrong here. Since this is set in MCU, I figured I could probably get away with my rudimentary knowledge :P Hope you enjoyed it. One more chap to come! <3


	4. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guyyys... sorry I haven't been able to answer the last comments yet, my week's been hell and I feel like someone's run me over with a truck or something. Ugh. But I'll reply, promise.  
> As for this chap: A friend of mine analyzed the 'fluff barometer' (her words) for this fic as follows: shit, shittier, better, best, which means: this final chapter has all the fluff (and smut. There's smut). Hope you all enjoyed this slightly weird take on the soulmate verse. Thanks for commenting, kudo'ing, and generally being awesome readers <3

It was worth waiting the day until the others had fully settled in at Avengers Tower just to see the look of awe on Steve’s face. They were all waiting for them to arrive at the new communal floor, dressed in comfy sweats, jeans and slouchy tops, looking for all the world like they’d already lived here for a couple of years. Even _Thor_ was wearing sweatpants, which was… not a sight Tony thought he’d ever see.

When he pushed open the door to the living room, the team didn’t say anything by way of greeting—didn’t do much more than smile and point the two of them to the pizza boxes—a two-liter bottle of Coke balanced on the top. And honestly, Tony didn’t know what surprised him more; the fact that they were actually all here, wanting to live with him, or that they had also consciously decided to spend the evening with him, and weren’t secretly looking for a way out.

The only thing Tony knew for sure was that he never felt as alive as he did when he looked at Steve. Throughout dinner, Steve stared unapologetically as though he was trying to figure Tony out. Romanov and Barton edged across the sofa to make room for Steve, and he accepted the pizza box with a nod of gratitude.

They ate, drank, and watched a movie. Steve devoured about three pizzas and Tony was unable to hide his grin at his food-stuffed cheeks. They talked about nothing in particular, kept the mood light and distracted Steve with easy chatter, jokes and stories about their past weeks. All in all, it was easy to imagine a future like this, with the Avengers under his roof and Steve…

He wanted a future with Steve.

Later that night, he walked Steve to his new room. Then he double-checked his wounds, applying the disinfectants that the doctors at SHIELD had given him. The process wasn’t as awkward as he thought it would be—oddly comfortable, even.

Steve sat down on his bed, and slowly stripped down to his boxer briefs. Tony felt his eyes on him with every piece of clothing he took off, every indiscernible move he made, and while Tony forced himself not to stare too bluntly, he could feel the surges of want and curiosity over the bond, and couldn’t really decipher from which side they originated.

“I’ll have to check the wounds for two or three days,” he said quietly.

Steve frowned and looked up at Tony. “You don’t need… Natasha offered to help with that.”

There was absolutely no way he was letting anyone else do this. Not tonight and probably not tomorrow—never again, if he had his way.

“I don’t mind,” he said, helping Steve pull off his sweatpants.

Steve hissed in pain as Tony motioned for him to lie down, but eventually settled on the mattress.

“I’m still not entirely sure this is real,” he admitted after a moment, though his words were cut off with a loud wince. “Every day, you were coming for me and looking at me the way you do now. Every time before they gave me another dose, you were there. Only it wasn’t you. It was one of them.”

“SHIELD found the ones who did that to you,” Tony said softly. “Every single one of them. They’re dead now. And this is real. I promise.” He stepped forward until he was standing between Steve’s legs, his fingers curling around his wrist as he raised his hand to his face. He met his golden eyes with a steady gaze, willing Steve to understand.

A wealth of emotion flooded the bond. Steve nodded numbly, his fingers grazing Tony’s temple with unfamiliar intimacy, and something that had started as a simple gesture suddenly became momentous.

And if that wasn’t enough, the knowledge that Tony could have lost Steve just as easily as he’d found him cut him to the bone.

He glanced down, and deliberately ignored the bulge straining against Steve’s boxer briefs. He was somewhat thrilled that he could affect Steve like that, even when he was injured, but… this wasn’t what this was about.

Tony kneeled down. Their eyes met once more and he released a deep breath. He took the facecloth in his hand and rubbed the disinfectant over the cuts on Steve’s skin. It was a strange and entirely new position for him to be in and Tony was the first to admit it, but he found himself smiling at Steve’s large eyes as he cleaned and bandaged the wounds on his legs.

Despite how he tried, Tony couldn’t see beyond tomorrow and he had a feeling the night would be plagued with memories of this very moment. Of the look that Steve gave him that was partly skepticism, but also lazed with such hope.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was unexpectedly easy to fall into place with Steve at his side. Things were good. Easier. The bond wasn’t giving them such a hard time any longer. It likely felt them growing closer on a different level—at least that was what Bruce kept telling him—and that seemed to be enough.

They talked forever. About everything. All the time. In-between missions, down in his workshop, or while they were cooking dinner for the team together. He asked Steve things he’d never thought to ask—things he hadn’t known he wanted answered. They talked about Steve’s kidnapping, the war, about both of their parents—and Steve told him about Peggy. Tony found he loved listening to Steve as he spoke, relishing the way his eyes lit up when he was narrating a particularly interesting story. The way his voice would heighten in moments of excitement and drop when things became too intense.

And Tony realized he liked Steve. As a person, he genuinely liked the guy. Liked him in a way that surpassed anything the bond had ever given him so far. Steve was a complete dork most of the time and had this hilariously dry sense of humor that often brought tears to Tony’s eyes. Steve was just… he was honest, he was loyal, and he cared _so_ much, and Tony felt himself falling harder every day.

Inevitably, things changed between them. He could feel it with every move Steve made. Every time their eyes met, friendly and uncertain, yet resolved in something that had yet to be voiced. The cautious glances Steve gave him weren’t frightened anymore, but rather expectant. Sometimes, in the mornings, he touched Tony like a lover. Brushed his arm when he pushed a cup of coffee in his hand but without truly realizing the full impact of his actions.

So yeah, Tony liked Steve. And that inevitably led to him becoming aware of the way Steve’s lips essentially seemed to have sex with whatever was between them. His drawing pencils, his lower lip, food—and if he had to stomach watching Steve orally fornicate one more banana, he would die of blue balls. Because Steve sure as hell hadn’t orally fornicated anything else so far.

“So… Steve seems to be a good guy,” Rhodey supplied, munching on a few fries, and not saying anything more.

When Tony had arrived at the workshop an hour ago, Rhodey and Pepper had waited for him with matching expressions of long-suffering. Tony wasn’t even surprised. Over the years, the two of them had done their little ‘intervention thing’ numerous times, and always justified it by telling him how they only adapted to his radical nature.

There was a bag of cheeseburgers between them—Tony was decidedly _not_ calling it comfort food—and at first, they’d ate in companionable silence, occasionally commenting on something happening in the army, or in the company. When the burgers were gone, Pepper oh so subtly changed topics and asked how he was doing, how the Avengers were doing—how _Steve_ was doing.

“Yeah, he is,“ Tony agreed and inwardly counted to ten, because Jesus, those two weren’t even trying to be subtle.

Rhodey eyed him. “So you’re, what, together now?”

Here we go.

“We’re… getting to know each other.” _Thoroughly_. “Stop playing matchmaker, it’s freaking me out.”

Pepper didn’t seem to be too enlightened by that. She rolled her eyes and set her plate onto the table. “You’re both stalling, and it’s making you unbearable,” she said.

“I’m not—”

“You are. You’re being crabby.”

Tony groaned, rubbing his eyes. Had he really been that obvious? “I’m just… I need to be patient with this. Steve deserves that. He will come around on his own time.”

“You spent most of last year telling him how there was no way in this world or the next that you would ever think of him as anything more than a teammate.” Pepper leaned back, eyeing him. “Of course he is wary now. That just means you need to step up.”

Tony blinked. “Step up.”

“Be more direct,” Rhodey supplied.

Tony closed his eyes and hissed out a long, overdrawn breath, hands going instinctively to his head to ward off an incoming headache. So, apparently, they were talking about this. “And how would I go about being _direct_?” he asked, followed by a long sigh. “It’s not like I have ever… tried to romance a guy.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “It can’t be all that different. Just remember what’s been working for you all those years,” she said, and then mimed a phone with her hand. “ _Tony, honey? This is Miss October. How about sex? Let’s have sex. I’m at your house in ten minutes. I’m gonna be the naked one._ ”

Tony snorted. “That never happened.” Not exactly like _that_ , at least. His gaze turned towards the window. “Thing is… it’s not like Steve to give up. He’s the most persistent man I know. He would never just throw in the towel if he’d really _want_ something, so… maybe he doesn’t want to take this on a, well,” He grimaced at the phrasing, “physical level.”

Pepper and Rhodey exchanged a glance. “You said you were kissing.”

Tony shrugged a little self-consciously. “Twice. And only because I initiated it.”

“Do you love him?” Pepper asked.

Well. There was a question. Tony felt heat rising to his cheeks, again, and he’d really thought himself incapable of blushing like that, by now. Especially when talking to Pepper and Rhodey, who’d both already seen him in conditions and positions nobody should be seen in. “It doesn’t matter if he just wants to be my friend,” he said.

Pepper’s face was all warmth. “It _does_ matter. If you love him you… just need to put yourself out there. I know it’s scary, but this is your soulmate. Just tell him how you feel.”

Rhodey nodded in agreement. “He’ll declare his feelings for you and then I don’t want to hear from you until the honeymoon phase is over. You and Captain America going at it is not something I need to see in my life.”

Tony rolled his eyes and leaned back, eyeing the mist hanging between the skyscrapers outside.

They made it all sound so simple.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Oddly enough, the more time he spent with Steve, the easier it became to drown out the bond. He… didn’t need it anymore. Instead, for the entirety of the next weeks, only his own thoughts ran through his head, telling him that this guy was the real deal. This guy was something to write home about.

They tried the pizza thing again—without the rest of the team. Steve had been rather receptive to the notion that Tony wanted to bond with him just like he’d bonded with the others, and there was something so incredibly elementary in sharing a meal with him. It didn’t seem forced or awkward at all.

They sat on the couch together, and after a long moment, Tony shifted and raised a hand to Steve’s face, his fingers tracing the outline of his healing bruises. “These look better,” he observed quietly. “Do they feel better?”

“Yeah, much,” Steve murmured, his voice strained at his touch. Then, he cleared his throat. “I meant to tell you. I talked to Sharon today.”

A still beat filled the air around them.

Tony cast a cool eyebrow. “Did you now.” There was no way that Steve hadn’t heard the biting sting of his resentment, but Tony couldn’t help himself. Not when he wanted Steve like he did. “How is she?”

Steve smiled softly at him. “There’s no need to be jealous.”

“I’m not…” Tony sighed, feeling the jealousy surge over the bond. If a feeling overwhelmed him, he still had trouble keeping it out of the bond. “Damn emotion tracker.”

Steve leaned back and chuckled. “It’s getting easier to control, right? You’ll be able to hide from me soon enough.”

“Mmm,” Tony hummed, not even sure if he wanted to. “So, Sharon?”

Steve nodded, his gaze darkening somewhat. “Yeah, I… we talked for a while. She is still in shock, about the impostor. It hasn’t been easy.”

“You think she’ll be fine? She’s still getting therapy?”

“Yeah, I… yes. She is. The other me, it… made a few promises to her, aside from the physical contact, you know.” He shook his head with a grimace, and yeah, not a nice thought. “It’s… the whole thing really hurt her and we’ll meet up again in a few days. I owe her that much.”

Tony offered a non-committal shrug. “Of course. You should do that.”

Steve sighed. “I don’t… I don’t love her, Tony. I never really did. We just went on a few dates and I’m… I’m with you in this, now. Whatever _this_ is, whatever you want it to be—I’m in it.”

The words meant nothing compared to the conviction in Steve’s voice. He meant it. God, he really meant it.

“So you… feel like I do?” Tony asked cautiously, glancing in Steve’s direction. “I wasn’t really sure…”

Steve breathed in deep. He looked almost terrified. Nothing like the brave hero Tony had seen on the battlefield. He was shaking slightly, his strong arms tense as his hands pressed down on the couch cushion. Tony felt the hum of Steve’s heartbeat just inches from him. “If you feel like your heart will burst out of your chest any second, we’re on the same page.”

Tony smiled at his choice of words. Then, he cast Steve a little grin and shrugged. “Nope, that doesn’t sound familiar at all.”

Steve snorted, and playfully pushed against him. The tease vacated his expression, though, as a sigh coursed through his body. “It’s just… I think I’ve never felt this strongly about anyone. And it’s still… so confusing.”

Tony hummed in agreement. “Yeah, that’s what bothered me, too,” he said carefully and glanced down. “I wasn’t sure if what I was feeling is real, or manufactured by the bond. And I needed it to be real. Whatever _this_ is… it needed to be real.”

“Yeah,” Steve said quietly, not quite looking at him anymore, either. He exhaled slowly, his eyes finding a spec on the couch table to focus on.

Tony studied Steve’s profile for a long minute, and… Jesus, the wait was killing him.

Fuck it. Pepper was right. He needed to step up. He had never been treading this carefully, and Steve _was_ his soulmate after all. So he closed the gap between them, cupped Steve’s face, and kissed him.

Despite the one heated kiss on the Helicarrier, and the two short goodbye kisses they’d shared lately, Steve was still stunned for a long second. Only when Tony didn’t pull away again, he shook out of his haze, and oh God, there it was. Steve softly nibbled at his lips as he sought entrance, filling his mouth with a sweet moan of surrender. He drank Tony in fully, and plundered in with his tongue. With a strangled sound, he grasped Tony’s shoulders and pulled him on top of him, thrusting his pelvis into his.

Tony pulled back just slightly. “Steve—”

“You’re mine,” Steve grunted, almost primitive, drawing Tony’s mouth back to his.

“I—mmff.”

For a few wondrous seconds, there was nothing but Steve’s taste. He could feel the pressure in his groin rising, and every doubt went numb against the glorious feel of Steve’s body against his.

They breathed each other in, golden eyes locked together whenever they broke apart for a few seconds.

God, just being near Steve was intoxicating, and now that Tony didn’t fight it anymore, it felt like he was steadily losing parts of himself. The rate was terrifying. The life he’d been living happily for so long, Pepper, Malibu, it was all in the past. Since Steve had touched him, since their eyes had met, since he knew the taste of his kisses, he was willing to freely hand over everything that made him who he was.

It was the most terrifying feeling of his entire life.

Eventually, Steve pulled back and pressed their foreheads together. “You make me feel like I’m all… out of control.” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “But—this brought us here. And I’m grateful for that.”

Tony shook his head and cupped Steve’s cheeks. “I’m not here because of the soulbond,” he said with determination in his voice. “I’m here. With you. _Despite of it._ I’m here because I chose to be.”

A sigh of relief coursed off Steve’s shoulders. “Good.”

Tony smiled and reached for Steve’s hand. Their fingers entwined, and he suddenly felt as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Tentatively, Steve pulled him into a tight hug and the warm scent of his hair tickled Tony’s nostrils. With the steady drum of his heart beating soundly against his chest, with the warmth of his skin enveloping him, he felt as close to peace as he had since the moment their golden eyes had first locked on another.

Steve chuckled, like he’d been thinking the exact same thing. “Can I kiss you again?” he asked softly.

Jesus, the guy was adorable. “You can kiss me whenever you want to.”

Steve’s lips were on his the next second.

Kissing Steve was definitely a pleasure he’d been denying himself for far too long. He’d spent too many days without feeling his strong arms around him. Without feeling the steady beating of his heart and the little moans that scratched at the back of his throat.

He’d read about the connection between mates, but now that he knew how it could be like, what they could share if they wanted, he quickly realized how much he’d underestimated this. It was a feeling unlike any other, and it was potent enough that he reckoned he would feel Steve’s happiness for hours before the sensation finally knew rest. What Steve felt, he felt. It was a part of nature. A part of what made him his.

Steve was _his_.

He leaned his forehead against Steve’s. “You sure about this? I need you to be sure.” Because he knew now, once he was letting go of all his reasons why he hadn’t wanted to do this… there was no going back. Not for him.

Steve leaned forward, lightly tracing Tony’s lips with his own. “I’m not a man who just changes his mind. Not about something like this. You don’t know me, yet.”

_I will, though. Better than anyone._

The thought wasn’t nearly as frightening as it used to be.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A little while later, Steve, Natasha and Clint departed on a mission to detect the last remaining Skrull bases and it was… surprisingly easy to deal with that. Tony still remembered how he used to feel like he was missing a part of himself whenever Steve wasn’t near. He hurt whenever he’d tried to shut Steve out, and almost couldn’t take it when Steve blocked him in return.

Now though, the bond was merely a quiet hum. Being apart from Steve didn’t feel like cutting off one of his limbs anymore. He wasn’t forced to miss him, didn’t even have to think about him at all, really, and the fact that he did _anyway_ , gave him the final proof that this was real.

The bond had pushed him here, sure, but the final choice was all his. _All this_ was his own making.

Tony’s head whipped up, as Steve entered the communal floor. And when his eyes met Tony’s for the first time after three long week, they were flashing with gold so vibrant he felt himself nearly moved to tears. The little sigh of relief that left Steve’s lips, then, would remain with him until the end of days; he knew it.

“Hi,” Steve said, softly. He was still in his uniform, which meant that he’d skipped debriefing and came here, right away.

Tony leaned up, from where he sat on the couch, and smiled at him. “Heya, Cap.”

Steve was studying him carefully. He could see him thinking; could feel his thoughts unraveling. His eyes seemed lost, confused, but drawn. Oh, so drawn. And Tony knew that look well. Knew it, because for the past weeks, it had been nearly his only driving force.

“It was easy being away,” Steve said. “I didn’t expect that.”

Tony nodded, his guarded gaze never abandoning the man in front of him. “Yeah. It was… much easier.”

It was silent for a long moment. The air filled with the crisp attention of an unfamiliar tenor. Yes, everything changed. He had changed. He had changed so much. But try as he might, he could not bear the thought of taking it back.

Steve took a step closer. He breathed in and squared his shoulders. “It was also… I hated being away from you.”

Tony released a deep relieved breath that came out as a chuckle, and, almost blindly, he reached out. Some innate part of him had to touch him. “Come here?”

It was a simple gesture, but the effect was immediate. The next thing he knew, Steve stalked towards him, and the clanging of his shield, as it fell to the ground, resonated through the big room.

Well. This was it then.

When Steve’s hand found his, he nearly crumpled. “Missed you,” he said, reaching for Steve before he could stop himself. His arms were around Steve’s waist, as he lowered himself on top of Tony. Their bodies were pressed together, and Tony’s mouth peppered the skin of Steve’s throat with hot, hungry kisses. “So much.”

And then, it was all lost. Completely lost. The bond opened up, as Steve’s emotions were laid bare to him and he felt every last bit of control snap. Steve growled into Tony’s ear, twisted him in his arms, pressing him down on the couch cushion. His big, muscled body was against him, the warmth of his skin almost burning him. God, he smelled so good. So fucking good. And it had been so, so long.

“Steve,” he whimpered, sucking at the flesh of Steve’s neck.

Steve’s hands explored him almost immodestly; he cupped his ass, then reached up to brush over his back, grunting brusquely into his skin. “Want you,” Steve groaned. “You were all I could think about.”

“I know. Me too.”

“I was going mad on the mission. This is all me, isn’t it? Just me. God, I want you so much.” He dipped a hand between them, pressing his leg between Tony’s so that he rested between them, and fumbled hastily with the zipper of Tony’s jeans.

“Tell me you want this,” Steve pleaded against his skin. “I’ve been trying to give you space, but— Tell me I can have you.”

Tony barked a laugh, almost hysterical. “You were giving me space?” he asked and… _of course._ The thought that Steve just tried to be a gentleman about this hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“What?” Steve asked, raising an eye brow.

“Nah.” Tony waved. “Never mind. Just… kiss me, come on.”

He was intoxicated with Steve’s scent, and his control was quickly spiraling out of grasp. He needed him. He needed to commit every part of Steve’s body to memory. He needed to know every inch of his body, and tie his lifeline to Steve’s for good. Steve was against him, his breath hot on his skin, and he was irrevocably lost.

Tony swallowed hard and cupped Steve’s cheek, drawing that endless golden sea back home. “I want this, and I want you,” he said firmly.

He could feel Steve’s arousal mounting. It was a mutual sentiment. He felt Steve’s, Steve felt his, and they felt one another’s.

Jesus, Steve belonged to him now, didn’t he? Through all the haze, all the confusion, all the anger, that much was abundantly clear. And honestly, Tony didn’t know what frightened him more: the fact that he never seemed to have any damn choice in the matter, or the fact that his lack of a choice didn’t bother him anymore.

This might have been something fated. Something prophesized. Something he had never been able to change from the start, and yet… he felt that if he were given the choice now, he would’ve chosen Steve anyway.

“You feel so good,” Steve murmured into his hair, thrusting the bulge in his jeans against Tony’s cock, and God, the sensation of another dick rubbing against his was foreign, but made Tony press his thighs together to suppress his arousal.

Tony drew in a sharp breath, his heart thundering. “You, too.”

_And you’re all mine._

The realization was overwhelming. It liberated him, brought his troubled mind peace, and sent him into a world of deeper reckoning. Any last reservation snapped at that, a possessive groan clamoring through his throat. At last, Tony shed his sweater and tossed it to the floor, leaving him in his tank top. “No looking back, right?”

It didn’t occur to him until they were in his bedroom that this was going to happen. He was going to have sex with a guy.

Steve peeled his tank top from his chest, his mouth pressing gentle kisses to Tony’s chest with masked innocence. Then, he sat Tony down on the edge of the bed and dropped to his knees before him. He worked his shoes off his feet before turning his attention to Tony’s boxer briefs. He was shivering, too, nervous, and when Tony’s cock sprang into his hand, he saw Steve swallowing hard.

“Steve, you don’t need to… I understand if—”

He couldn’t even finish the sentence, before Steve’s tongue lapped at his cock, his hand pumping him, and the feel of his lips around him now nearly made him lose all restraint.

Oh shit.

“Oh _shit_ ,” Tony breathed, falling back. “You got used to this whole gay sex thing pretty fast,” he mumbled towards the ceiling.

Steve pulled back with a wet sound, but the movement of his hand didn’t stop. “You’re you. I like you. All of you.” He leaned up to press a little kiss against Tony’s thigh.

“That simple?”

“That simple.” Steve palmed his dick. “I like this, too.”

Heat flooded Tony’s body, and he stared down at Steve for a long moment. There was no doubt in his golden eyes. No hesitation—only resolution. And that solidified it. There really was no going back now, and if he was doing this now, he might as well do it right.

A passionate rumble tore through Tony throat. He cupped Steve’s face, bringing their mouths together. His lips were soft and welcoming, his kisses eager and needy. As though he feared he would vanish. As though this moment was so fragile that if he handled it too roughly, it would no longer exist.

Tony leaned back, and took a deep breath.

_Here goes nothing._

He swallowed, and nodded in the direction of the night table. “Lube’s in the top drawer.”

Steve eyed him for a long moment, before he leaned to the side. A second later, he started to pump his length again, as his lips played across Tony’s balls.

Christ, his control was teetering on edge already. Wasn’t Steve supposed to be the fluttering virgin, here? He unwound him with the slightest look, the gentlest touch. His mouth nipped at his erection, his tongue lapping at his sensitive head, murmuring his approval lowly in the back of his throat.

Tony realized then, that Steve had somehow managed to have him fully naked while he was still fully dressed in his damn uniform. Steve placed his large hands tentatively on his hips, capturing his cock between his lips, suckling him deep into his mouth. His hands pulled at his lower body, hauling him forward until his ass was half-dangling off the edge. Then, Tony felt soft prodding at his entrance, and he heard himself groaning. “Uhh…” He fisted Steve’s hair and held him to his cock. Steve murmured wordless rumbles into his skin, before he slid a wet finger into his body. Tony’s eyes went wide with a moan and he lifted his hips off the mattress, urging himself into the touch.

“There you go,” Steve said as he pulled his mouth back for a second. He cast him a little mischievous grin that made Tony scowl at him. Moaning for his finger, right.

Time blurred, and Steve reassuringly pressed his lips to Tony’s right thigh as he eventually plunged another finger into him. And Tony couldn’t do anything but hold on to the bed sheet. Everything else simply blanked out. Steve ground his mouth against the length of his cock, thrusting his intrusive fingers into his body, and the strange sensation was simply too much.

“You okay?” Steve asked, his breath cool on the wet flash of his cock.

Tony released a shrill laugh, while he thrust his hips forward. “You have your fingers in my ass, Rogers. I think it’s a little late to be asking. Yeah this is… good… God, _please_ …”

Steve grinned cheekily and licked at the head of his cock. “Please what?”

“Another one.”

Steve groaned a bit at that, slowly sinking another finger into him. “Anything else?”

Tony bit his lip, riding Steve’s hand slowly. “Suck me off again.”

Steve blew a breath against his cock, before he continued to nibble at his shaft.

“God, you shouldn’t be so good at this.” Tony moaned and there was such raw feeling in his voice, causing his cheeks to blush as Steve continued to pump him, pressing kisses into his skin. His fingers developed a fast rhythm. Tony’s heart was pounding wildly now and he was panting into the cool air of his bedroom. When he eventually forced himself to look down at Steve, he found his eyes wide with need, his shoulders wrought with tension.

God, his fingers felt so large. As though they had expanded within him, and were far further in his body than was possible.

“I think I’m good,” Tony gasped, and shook his head to clear it. “Never thought I’d say this, but—fuck me already.”

Obligingly, Steve removed his fingers and made to stand up. With a few, practiced movements, he stripped out of his uniform, and then his boxers. For a moment, Tony’s eyes travelled the expanse of his body. To his wide shoulders, the strong arms, the sensual curve of his hip, and God, his dick…

Might as well admit it now. That man was a work of beauty.

Then, Steve moved upwards to lie down on top of Tony.

Tony wound his arms around Steve and lowered his mouth to his skin. His tongue immediately occupied itself with the flesh at the base of Steve’s neck, his hands gently caressing his bare stomach. The moan that tore through Steve’s lips was one of the most beautiful sounds he’d ever heard—and he wanted Steve to make that noise over and over again.

“You’re beautiful,” Tony said. He wound his legs around Steve’s waist and he pressed soft, languid kisses against his throat as he urged Tony to lie down in the middle of the bed.

“I think I love you,” Steve suddenly whispered into his skin, and then went completely rigid. For a long minute, he thought he had imagined it. It wasn’t until he noticed the horrified look on Steve’s face that he realized it was real.

Tony closed his eyes. There had been something desperate in Steve’s voice, as though he was afraid Tony would deny him. Whatever his fears, the words, the urgency, the heartfelt caresses of his hands, completely undid him. The word love was terrifying, of course, but it did not change how he felt. Steve’s breathing was labored, his eyes wide. He released a deep breath and for endless minutes, it seemed, he couldn’t do anything but simply look at Tony.

Tony fidgeted, lifting his hips toward him. He couldn’t say it now, and Steve seemed to understand that. He probably felt it through the bond, anyway.

“Steve, please…”

Steve eyes darkened at that and he crawled forward, nipping at Tony’s neck again. “Love you,” he murmured again, less afraid this time, turning his attention to Tony’s cock again. “Love this. Love the way you taste, love the feel of your skin.” He took Tony’s cock in a hand and pumped it slowly. Tony mewled and thrashed and thrust his hips forward. “Love it when you do that,” Steve continued, shoving down heavily on his body. A shrill gasp tore through the comfortable air around them as his erection bumped against Tony’s hole. “Love the way you’re looking at me right now,” he continued, dropping his mouth to his neck.

Tony’s hands flew to Steve’s upper arms, his nails digging into his skin. “Steve, come _on_.”

Steve nibbled on his ear, the head of his cock teasing against Tony’s opening. “You sure you want this? I know you weren’t exactly—”

Tony groaned in annoyance, pushing his ass down so the tip of Steve slipped in. “I’m sure, dammit—and I’m not getting any younger here. 44 years and… eighty-something days is officially your last timeframe to take my ass-virginity, Rogers. After that, I’m getting— _oh sweet baby Jesus, there we go_ —I’m getting incorrigible and… _uh_ … and conservative. Fuck, you’re big, _oh God_ , how’s this…I’m—”

Steve pressed a low laugh against his neck, while he began to slide into him and Tony rambled his way through the entire penetration. Steve was big, and Tony felt his body stretch to accommodate him. The feeling was not something he’d ever imagined he would like and sure enough, it was overwhelming enough for his erection to deflate somewhat.

“Tony?” Steve asked, stopping his movement.

“Just a sec.”

Steve leaned down to kiss his nose. “We have all the time you need. Breathe.”

“Steve, there’s a dick in my ass.”

Steve smirked. ”I’m aware. As it happens, I’m kinda attached to that ‘dick’.”

“Hilarious,” Tony grunted and shook his head. “Just, _fuck_ , you’re in my _ass_ , Steve. I need to… Just let me freak out here for a second.”

Steve, bless him, didn’t move any further. And, God, Tony’s skin was almost peeling from the raw feel of it. He probably didn’t even have half of Steve inside him, yet, and the heat blazing through his body was already too much to handle.

“Okay, okay, move,” he said, wriggling downwards. He needed release, and he needed it now. He gripped the bed sheet, then, groaning with pleasure as Steve withdrew slowly from his body. The lightest touch, the barest hint, and he was lost. God, he needed anything that would calm this ache. So he pushed his feet into the mattress and slowly pushed himself back on Steve’s cock. His left hand flew upwards to squeeze himself, feeling his cock slowly harden again.

“You feel so good,” Steve gasped, his gaze drenched in wonder.

Tony leaned up, and fisted a handful of Steve’s hair to tug him down. The movement seemed to stretch him even wider, and he whimpered in repletion.

Soon enough, Steve was thrusting steadily into him, the moans scratching at his throat becoming more pronounced. And Christ, there was nothing about this that Tony didn’t love. The raw slaps their bodies made as they moved together, the whimpers and moans that tumbled through Steve’s lips, the slippery feel of his cock inside him, the matchless warmth of his chest pressed against Tony.

He was growing looser with each thrust, his body quivering, aching for the release that was steadily approaching. This sure as hell wasn’t something Tony had ever thought he’d enjoy, but there was no denying it now. Steve’s powerful movements pounded into him mercilessly, striking that spot inside that made him cry out in need and clench around him, straining to keep him inside even as he withdrew and rammed back in. Tony’s fingers gripped Steve’s shoulders, nails digging into his flesh, seeking something, anything to hold onto.

Right now, Steve controlled him, held him, _owned_ him, and he’d never had this. Never had the chance to just let himself fall like this. So many sensations bombarded his mind simultaneously. In a strange detached way, he felt what Steve felt, and the echoes of his own feelings drifting back and forth in Steve’s mind. And he knew, any moment now they were both going to tumble into a shattering orgasm.

“God, Tony, I’m gonna…” Steve said, as if on command, before he pressed a drawn-out groan against Tony’s mouth. He felt Steve spill hotly inside him and Tony couldn’t stop shoving back against his cock if his life depended on it. He was stroking his own dick and met Steve’s wide golden eyes, and he was lost in him. Absolutely lost.

And they fell together—a tumble down something they both knew so well without knowing at all. As though the promise of a forever changed them into something _more_ —something other than either could have prepared for.

This was it. And he would never let go again.

“Is it always gonna feel like this?” Steve asked after a long moment, voice wondrous.

Tony’s heart flooded with warmth and he leaned up to nuzzle Steve’s chin. “I dunno,” he murmured, gliding his hands up Steve’s arms. “What do you feel?”

“Everything,” Steve answered, as he looked down on him. “You.”

Tony smiled and nodded, giving Steve a soft kiss. And everything else was redundant. They were bound now. He could feel it, could feel the bond link them together, entwining them in something intangible but just as real.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It didn’t surprise him when Steve’s arm tightened around his middle as he made the slow transition from half-asleep to awake. Immediately, he knew what Steve was thinking. He feared that the soft-spoken words of their night together would fade and they would be right back to square one.

The notion was only slightly disheartening. In some way, he’d expected this. Romantic as the idea was, a few—albeit amazing—hours in bed couldn’t undo the last months full of hurt and distrust.

Steve flattened his palm against the arc reactor, and nuzzled his nose along Tony’s chin. “I know you’re awake,” he murmured. “No sense in playing possum on me.”

There was a note of hopeful nervousness in his voice—and a question he obviously wasn’t sure he wanted answered. It killed him how hard Steve trembled.

Tony sighed, his fingers wrapping around Steve’s hand. “I’m awake,” he replied, his tone soft. “And I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Who’s worried?” Steve asked, and could barely cover a relieved sigh. After a moment, he started to thrust his swelling cock against Tony’s backside.

Tony snorted. “Obviously not you.” He turned around and covered the granted space between them.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Steve asked, searching his gaze for answers.

Tony smiled against him. “Oh baby, my thoughts are worth far more than a penny.” He draped an arm around Steve, shivered off his warmth, and willed himself as close as he could get without swallowing him completely. “It was great,” he said and grinned at Steve. “Even worth the funny feeling in my butt.”

His hand travelled across Steve’s shoulder, his arm, his chest, and eventually dipped below the thin white bed sheet until Steve’s cock fell heavily into his waiting hand. With a single finger he traced him from base to tip and back again, his mind trying to catalogue him inch by inch.

Okay, the peeks he’d stolen—unwittingly—the night before hadn’t done him justice.

Steve looked at him with an open mouth and half-lidded golden eyes. Tony’s hand pumped him twice, his thumb exploring the tip of him; familiarizing himself with his anatomy. With his size, with the feel of his smooth skin beneath his fingertips. After a few seconds, his hand developed a curiosity for his balls and delved downwards, cupping the weight of him.

Steve licked his lips, and looked down on him as though he was made of sunlight. “That feels good.” He gasped after a still second, thrusting his cock against Tony’s hand with need.

Tony smiled and pressed a little kiss against Steve’s lips, before he moved downwards. He leaned closer to Steve’s cock, nosing the soft skin there and inhaling the clean scent of him. “What do you like?”

“You,” Steve said again, eyes twinkling. “I like you very much.”

Tony grinned, as his tongue slowly licked a path from the underside to his velvety head. “I’d hope so. Otherwise this would be really awkward.”

His lips slid over his head, venturing down the hard length of him tentatively, while his eyes remained on Steve’s face. His hand circled the base of his erection and squeezed gently. After a few moments, Steve threaded his fingers through Tony’s hair, starting to thrust into his mouth with shallow motions.

And, well, he’d never thought he would end up enjoying blowjobs, but here he was. There was no way to look in Steve’s eyes and not love this. His experimental thrusts weren’t demanding, the grip on Tony’s hair was loving, rather than constrictive. He loved the way Steve’s skin tasted. The way his silky cock felt against his tongue, and how Steve moaned and released a string of unhurried, incoherent declarations. His balls fit perfectly into Tony’s palm and after a moment, the grip on his hair tightened when Tony began to make little suction motions. He loved how Steve gasped when he tasted his sac. Every noise he released, every move he made was delicious, and Tony wanted desperately to inspire as much need as possible.

Then Steve’s voice broke through the silence with a resounding gasp of his name, and Tony’s heart leapt. Instinct warred over experience and won. He licked. He sucked. He lapped at Steve’s head, then drew him as far into his mouth as possible. When he felt him brush against the back of his throat, he began working his throat muscles to swallow around him.

Steve came soon after that, and he did warn him off, but Tony just locked his mouth around the length and swallowed him down. If he was doing this, now, then he might as well make the whole experience. Steve shuddered violently, arching into Tony’s mouth for a final time. His moan tore through the silence of the penthouse as thick ropes of salty come spilled down Tony’s throat. Steve gave off a long drawn-out groan, the grip on Tony’s hair tightening.

He felt he should be surprised with the impact of the taste, but everything was left to instinct. Steve’s entire body tensed beneath his fingers, his hips pressing his dick into Tony’s mouth of their own volition.

God, what he felt for Steve in that moment terrified him. It was more than the bond. More than his soul’s choice. It was more than the need to belong to someone. This was love. It was unthinkable. It was wonderful. And it was real.

Steve was heavily slumping back against the headboard, his head lolling sideward. He was right here. He could touch him.

And he did.

Raising a hand to Steve’s face, he brushed strands of his blond hair back and forth, feeling him startle at the movement and finding himself burned under the heavy stare of his golden eyes only seconds later. And for a short eternity, they were captured. Frozen.

“Steve…”

Steve smiled and leaned up. He ran his fingers through Tony’s hair. Exploring his face with his hands. The next thing he knew, Steve’s lips touched his, demanding, eager, and consuming him. Steve’s tongue explored his mouth, tasting himself there, and it seemed he couldn’t stop touching him. Feeling him.

Well, Tony didn’t blame him. His hands weren’t recognizing boundaries, anymore, either. There were no boundaries here. Steve was all around him, in his body, his mind and in his heart. He’d never felt anything more perfect before.

“It’s you and me, now.” Steve whispered, tapping his fingers against the arc reactor, and for the first time since he’d stepped into the Quinjet in Stuttgart, he truly saw him. There was no mistaking him now. There was so much goodness in him, so much bravery and stubbornness, and humor and love. Steve was his opposite and complement in everything that mattered.

“Yeah,” Tony conceded. “It’s you and me. I’m so sorry that I reacted badly about this at first…”

Steve snorted in amusement. “Badly? You’re really gonna go with ‘badly’? If the bond hadn’t been so persistent—”

“Then we would’ve found another way. I was just trying to make a point.”

Steve smiled. “A point.”

“A badly executed point, maybe, but a point nevertheless. It felt… Wanting you, it felt like someone had stolen my ability to think. To choose. I didn’t like that.”

And that had nearly cost him this. The idea of fate intervening with his life had always struck him as something that could be stolen away from him. But this… this was a gift he’d been given. A gift he’d chosen to make use of. And he understood that now.

_I love him._

The realization was overwhelming. It liberated him, brought the bond peace, and sent him into a world of deeper reckoning. He would tell him. Soon. Whatever lay ahead for them would be more than worth it, Tony was sure of it. And whatever they had to face would be a fate shared. Steve was the one constant that would be at his side. Even before knowing him, there had been the promise of him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Steve murmured softly, kissing his neck, while his golden eyes slowly drifted shut. “You’re mine, right?”

Tony hummed slightly against him, and nodded. He was wrapped in silence, curled in Steve’s embrace as the penthouse settled around them. “I’m yours. Always.”


End file.
